If you are really bent on an alternative, go for the Cowon S9 (I dunno if its available in India). Excellent SQ if you are more into music. If you are more into videos stay with the Ipod Touch.
Just ask him to join TE and post his queries here, I’ll make sure he gets more than he bargained for 
… btw with the ipod now being jailbreakable, no other pmp comes close to it .
Samsung YP-P3
Cowon S9 curve
There is a new 3.5" touch screen Sony mp3 player coming soon.
These three should be the more-than-worthy contenders for ipod touch.
Ok, I’ll set him onto you then 
How about Cowon D2 or the newer S9… D2 is pretty cheap… Wont look great but good performer(Gold award in Digit Shootout)… S9 looks great too:)
Digit chip awards are crap Anyways S9 is worth giving look 
Try that 
You say they are biased??? I have been reading digit for close to 3yrs now… 
I have read Digit a lot and its becoming crap day by day.. and review 
People who take their reviews into consideration end up buying lamest s.w and h.w 
Then i think i should stop subscribing to it… Anyway i can comments on TE anytime so no problems
for archos, u need to buy the browser software to use it for internet.
I am a iPod Touch owner for a year now, never looked beyond the videora convertor. IMO touch/iphone pretty much is more than enough.
cowon ftw..
Digit Sucks big time.. by far the lamest stuff ive seen. Very very biased and just really really bad..
My friend got the S9 10 days ago.
Its got a capacitive screen…no mulltitouch and the OS is laggy.
Its an AMOLED screen so the clarity is superb..blows the ipod touch’s screen…BUT its so small that I was enjoying watching the movie on the touch (which by no means is bad, its good enuf) because of the larger screen.
The accelerometer is bad..my friend turned it off.
Even browsing thru images is not smooth like the ipod.
Music quality is average (atleast with the bundled earphone)
Small..light and sleek.
My friend mumbled some numbers proving how the battery life is better than the touch (I don’t doubt that, its a smaller AMOLED screen).
My choice: Ipod touch
well.. there are plenty of changes expected on the ipod touch in june. lets see how that goes.