I rode Nokians all of last winter and they are great on packed snow and ice. They are noisy and somewhat slower on bare pavement, but think of it as increasing your training load! In loose snow they are probably no better than knobby tires. After looking through a lot of stuff on studded tires I chose Nokians because of the longer life of the studs. If I remember correctly, other studded tires tended to wear down a little faster, but all of them performed about the same in riding. So assess how much riding you are likely to do in snow and ice. If its not a lot, then going cheaper might be a good investment. If on the other hand you might ride on studded tires everyday for months then Nokians might be a better value.