Building a cheaper mouse trap
I know there's some pretty hard-core Apple lovers out there. But when they announced Apple was opening a store in Greensboro, the way some in our news room reacted reminded me of 10-year-old girls learning daddy scored tickets to a Hannah Montana concert.
Fortunately, no one fainted.
Yes, I know, Apple makes some pretty cool stuff. They definitely build better electronics mouse traps. But guess what? Other gadget makers out there are catching up, building better, faster and cheaper gizmos.
Take MP3 players, for example. In a story in today's Life section of the News & Record ("Gifts for your favorite techie"), Staff Writer Joe Killian touts the Sandisk Sansa E260 4 GB MP3 player as a cheaper alternative to Apple with more bells and whistles to boot.
Joe writes: "Sure, the new iPod Nano has video, but this Sandisk player beats it out on price and features. Give them this, and they can expand the memory with SD memory cards, listen to digital FM radio, use the digital voice recorder and remove the battery for charging while their iPod-toting friends go green with envy."
