"I’ve always held Nokia’s S60 music playing in high regard, and this is in part because it is married to something more than just a scroll wheel. The keyboard on a mobile phone, with its textual entry, adds vital functions that music players like the iPod don’t have. Search. It’s always been a close run thing on what is better, having an incredibly fast and accurate scrolling mechanism (the iPod) or being able to zero in with search to an artist, album or track. With music players of between 2GB and 4GB, most people (including myself) have pretty good recall, and know what they’ve loaded up. And if you’re holding back half a Gigabyte or so for images, eBooks and third party applications then that recall is enhanced.
In those circumstances, search is much more useful than scroll. But as capacities increase, there is an increased tendency to leave albums on the device for a long time (and be pleasantly surprised when you come over them again after listening to the new Kenny Rogers Collection that you’ve just transferred). This means that searching becomes a bit more hit and miss ("Have I put Thunderclap Newman on here?", as opposed to "I need 'Something In The Air’ right now!") and scrolling becomes more useful. "