Posted: 5/29/2004 6:37:57 AM EDT
| Anyone here have one of these? How do you like it? Was it worth the money? I want one but the $500 price tag makes me wary. What dont you like about it? |
|
Yes, I have a first generation iPod and really like it. The things I would change - not so heavy, less sensitive scroll wheel - have been fixed in subsequent releases. There is a giant hue and cry about the battery going bad; all batteries will eventually go bad, but the iPod got a lot of negative publicity due to Apple's initial mishandling of the situation. There was a $50 (last I checked) kit to replace the battery available. That being said, I have had my iPod since soon after they first came out and just the other day ran it for over 5 hours on the plane without running out of battery. Your mileage may vary. With iTunes you can create playlists of your mp3s and they will be transferred over. You can make "Smart Playlists", where you tell it you want only alternative songs that you've rated four stars or more and haven't been played in the last week, for example. Handy. |
|
First decide what you want to do with it. If it's for exercise, then a flash memory based model might be better as they will take a LOT of jarring without issue and the battery life is better although they do not tend to be rechargeable. Hard drive models, tend to skip or even possible crash under very strenuous activity. If you want to carry TONS of music around, then a big hard drive model is a requirement. If you want to carry a lot , but not all or your music, then the 4.5 gig ipod mini's or RIO's might be the answer as they are cheaper (not a lot) and more resistant to rough handling over the larger siblings. Are you primarily a windows or mac user. Ipods work EXCELLENT with Macs, but not so well with Windows. The best Windows jukebox player is the Iriver because of it's versatality, format support, and Windows compatibility, but it aint cheap. For price, then the Creative Zen or Dell Jukebox is the leader. The most popular with the best ease of use though, is still the Ipod's, but they are priced accordingly. |
|
Yes, iTunes (the software that the iPod interfaces with) is available for Windows as well as Mac. As far as browsing options, here's a rundown on what mine has: Playlists (what I mentioned above) Browse -Artists -Albums -Songs -Genres -Composers You can also load up a rudimentary address book and calendar. You can also look on store.apple.com and click on the "Save" tag on the left to see what is available for refurb units. Right now I see they have a 20Gb for $299 and a 30Gb for $349. I think they sell the refurb stuff with a factory warranty, too. |
|
The Ipods work well with Windows now as long as you use their software and it only works with music (at least with Windows, unless they hve changed). I like Jukeboxes that are seen as a native hard drive device in Windows so I can just use explorer to drag and drop crap into and out of the jukebox. Plus I often like to transfer things "other" than music (like programs or pictures), which you can do with devices that are seen as simply hard drives in Windows. Plus you can go to a friends and copy the music and stuff right to their Windows computer without issues of software. I am personally the kind of guy who hates dicking around with making sure all the ID tag information of a mp3 is correct. I just like to lump the mp3's under artist folders by filename. None of that album, artist, length, etc crap for me. I'm lazy. For example, my organization is simple. Folder named Eagles. Then all Eagles music in it with song track filename (i.e Eagles - Hotel California.mp3). I dont care about albums and junk. I like the IRiver in the fact that it includes a FM receiver that you can record on the fly as music is played, has a great remote, can record voice/conversations, supports near every format, and is seen as a hard drive in Windows (for transferring music or other files). It's ease of use is not a user friendly as the Ipod though. |
|
I ended up with a rio karma because it supports FLAC (a lossless compression format) and because the batteries last much longer. I make the 800 mile drive to my mom's place about four times a year and the ipod wouldn't last for the entire 12 hours on one charge. The karma will. |