You’ve obviously drank the Apple Kool-Aid and nothing I say will convince you that I’m not imagining things. You’re simply more right that the rest of us it seems.
Are you kidding me? Players are getting smaller, lighter, faster incredibly quickly. The screens are getting larger, brighter and better resolution every 6 months. The machines are managing their power consumption better and battery life is extending. I have a iPod 3G 30GB that weighs about 10 times as much as my Zune has a smaller, black and white screen and manages about 4 hours of audio on a single charge compared to the 25+ hours on my Zune. This doesn’t even start to consider UI improvements and new formats.
Not sure what norinew is referring to but the consensus is that iPods scratch up really easily. They have plastic screens and polycarbonite cases that scratch extremely easily. A scratched screen can cause lots of trouble with the new video capabilities and the colored cases really show the marks.
Zune has a glass screen which is many times tougher than the plastic and it has a brushed steel case.
I’m pretty sure the internal functionality and drop resistance is about the same between most flash based MP3 players.
If she’s going to be using it while dancing or doing aerobic walking then an iPod with a solid state memory is essential. The Classic has a hard drive in it, and the kind of jolting you’d expect from those activities would be murder on it. The Nano, Shuffle and iPod Touch all have flash drives and are suited to more active use.
My iPod is four or five years old and has been fantastic. I haven’t needed it so much recently but I still use iTunes because I like iTunes. It may be bloated and greedy, but I find it useful.
Did some shopping for a player recently and ended up going for the iPod (Nano 8GB) mainly for the aspect of accesory availability.
Hey, it doesn’t cure the common cold but it’s a good piece of equipment for what I want it, though at the upper price range.
As 99% of my music is on physical media which I rip from, I’m not quite dependent on the iTunes store. And I believe many of us should by now have some experience taming applications that attempt to take over or embed themselves into our system (Real Media, Microsoft, Quicktime, etc.)
As to resistance/durability, I suppose with all the hard-drive-based players there’s some reason to worry over this. Some people handle this by getting a smaller, flash-based (no physically moving parts) player for “workout” use, but these would seem to be more vulnerable to crush damage. Protective cases/covers are available, I have mine in a slilicone sleeve that once already has absorbed a hit, plus, I put screen-cover film, like the one you’d use on a Palm PDA’s touchscreen, over the iPod’s screen.
It is useful, most media software is, iTunes is the most feature rich and mature but all these companies have an incredibly low opinion of their users intelligence and exploit that in order to monetize their services. It’s beyond me why software developers have been so utterly retarded when it comes to designing a media manager program for non-idiots. WinAmp was pretty decent for a while there but the UI left a lot to be desired and it was a little too heavily geared toward the uber-geek. Most others are way too far on the other end of the spectrum and take away almost all of the control from the user and essentially hide where and what music files are. I wager that half the people using iTunes have no idea what format their music files are in or what folder iTunes decided to put them in. The music software producers hide this info in order to hide their DRM bullshit and to make it difficult and confusing for a non-savvy person to purchase music from anywhere other than their online store.
If I were a halfway decent software designer I’d build a new media program that did nothing but effectively manage and play music and ran very, very lean. That’d be worth $15-$30 to me if it meant I could abandon iTunes or Zune software and listen to my music and transfer it any way I want.
I recently picked up an 80g Zune. I’m quite happy with it.
The software is reasonably intuitive without any flashy bells or whistles.
The operation is straight forward and reliable.
To me, it struck out with wireless sync and wireless “friend” settings - thankfully the wireless feature can be disabled.
I do like the FM capability, though I honestly have yet to use it.
My biggest beef - the touch pad doesn’t work with gloved fingers. I like listening to tunes while riding the bike and I can’t change volume or fast forward while wearing gloves.
This was a must have for me so that I could listen to the TV audio broadcasts at the gym. I rarely bother with radio but being able to tune into the sound of the Cubs game on the treadmill is HUGE.
I don’t use the squircle’s touch capability at all. I go into settings and turn it off. I store mine in a rubber sleeve so it’s spotty at best, but I wanted to point out that you can adjust the volume and fast forward with gloves on. Pressing the up-down and left-right “buttons” (rocker directions of the squircle to be specific) does the exact same thing as sliding your finger across the touch pad, and frankly does it with more accuracy.
It’s not something anyone ‘told’ her, just an objection she came across in her search for a first mp3 player (which was a Sanyo Gigobeat). I’m looking to fight that kind of ignorance, which is why I’m posting the question here.
The Ipod can be hit or miss. The first one we brought for our kid, lasted maybe 3 month and died. Apple of course send us a replacement and that died, we are on the third one…it’s worked fine for the past year…but it bugged us that we purchased a new unit and ended up with refurbs.
The biggest complaint whether it’s informed or not is the use of itunes. Yes there are third party options, but most endusers will simply use itunes as that’s what Apple recommends for the best user experience.
I have nothing but bad things to save about Itunes. Now it may work better on a Mac, than on Windows; but for me it’s not my choice. Your experience will vary. I agree that at least on Windows, the thing is a bully and hogs everything…while yes you have the option to modify how it behaves, most endusers won’t know to do that.
My oldest uses Itunes and likes it, it works very well; but he likes to play with his music. So for him, a full featured application is great.
The rest of us don’t own Ipods, we own other brands, but when it came to deciding which player to get, the Ipod was on the bottom.
The reasons why were cost, reliability and Itunes…but we use our players in the most basic way.
So I think a lot of your decision should be based on use. Will you want to have complete control of your music or will you like I do, just hit play?
Um, which facts were those? Also, what claims did I make? iTunes wiped out my music a while ago and I’m holding a grudge. I’m fully aware that the version of the software now is a long ways from the buggy one that wiped me out 3+ years ago. Doesn’t change the fact that it still happened. I also fully conceded that Zune is no better in regards to bullying it’s way into your media library and shielding you from it’s nuts and bolts.
I plug in my iPod, iTunes opens, I manually move whatever songs or videos I want, and then I eject the Ipod. Simple as that. All my music is mp3s, in the same folders where I originally placed them. Nothing gets deleted unless I delete it.
Ditto. I’m on Windows, and very far from an Apple worshiper, but iTunes seems pretty serviceable to me and I’ve had few problems. Plug in the iPod, sync it, make a few playlists… its all good.
Most of the people who bitch about iTunes (like a friend of mine who used to use MusicMatch if I remember right) love to micromanage their music. He had an elaborate system of file names, folders, sub-folders. iTunes ignores all that back-end stuff and simply presents the songs. One problem he ran into when migrating his music was that the ID3 tag format that his old player used didn’t come up properly in iTunes, so some of the names that used double-byte characters didn’t display properly. I’m not sure if he’s ever found a fix for this, and I’m not sure where to place the blame. I’m inclined to believe that the tagging used by his old program was proprietary and therefore incompatible with the modern file standard. If that’s the case, he could have run into the same problem with another program that uses current ID3 tags too.
In regard to audio quality, this guy’s comparison has the 5G losing out to an audiophile Ayre CX-7 CD player that costs about $3,000. That would be a 9 out of 10 compared to a 7 out of 10 for the iPod. He rates the 5G better than the new Classic in sound quality, and better than the 3G or 4G predecessors. You can also get a Red Wine iMod for $300 to bypass part of the internal wiring in order to (allegedly) improve the sound … but you’d also need to have nothing but uncompressed or losslessly compressed formats (no MP3 or AAC) and headphones or speakers that are capable of presenting the sound well. Earphones that good are about as expensive as an iPod, and can be much more expensive. If you’re that much of an audio snob, I kind of doubt that you’re willing to sully your ears with a “portable” music experience of any kind.
I have a 5.5G, 30 GB iPod that I got as a gift from my wife. My only regret is that I don’t have more storage space. I’m seriously considering upgrading the hard drive since that model has better sound characteristics, and I don’t care about any of the new shininess of the Classics’ capabilities with video and other stuff.
I can’t vouch for the quality of the ipod format but I noticed a difference between mp3 ripping software. The stock windows added too much noise. Not all software engines are equal in this respect.
ipod certainly has the lions share of aftermarket peripherals. The only thing I would avoid is a hard drive. My experience with micro-drives left a bad taste in my mouth and I will never buy another one. Flash memory is mandatory for me.
I’m sort of confused by the claim that iTunes “hides” your music.
I don’t know how iTunes functions on a PC, but on my MacBook, all I have to do is go “Music” -> “iTunes”, and there all my music is, organized by iTunes by artist and then album. I’ve recently switched from downloading all of my music to buying physical copies, and I’ve never had any problem either downloading from the iTunes store, eMusic, or Amazon.com, or ripping CDs. I know exactly what format all of my music is in (and, in fact, being dissatisfied with the iTunes store’s 128kbps AACs and DRM is what led me to start buying CDs again) and where it is. iTunes makes updating ID3 tags, finding album artwork, organizing my music, and creating playlists a breeze.
What exactly does iTunes do with your music on a PC?
Norine, I’ve owned MP3 players right from the beginning, the Diamond Rio through the iPod. The one big advantage I noticed with the iPod is simplicity. It just works. When I opened my iPod that Christmas morning over 3 years ago, I just about flipped when it only took a simple software install on the computer, straightforward import of my existing MP3 library and sync to the device. That was it. I didn’t read a manual or anything. No driver downloads, no sync setups, no OS updates (I’m looking at you, Windows Media Player-based machines.). It just worked.
A minor advantage is the plethora of software, hardware, and cases for the things. Because they’re so popular, you can usually find something to counteract any perceived weakness. I was worried about scratching the screen; I had a choice of replaceable plastic films to cover the screen. Because it’s a hard drive model, I worried about dropping it so I got a rubberized case. Good thing because I’ve accidentally dropped it on at least 3 continents and 30,000 feet above a few oceans and still plays fine. Not bad for a 42 month old gadget! Don’t think the battery will last long enough? Get an external battery–mine takes 2 AA batteries so I can pick up more pretty much anywhere. Really, capitalism works for the iPod.
If your daughter doesn’t need simplicity or the bazillions of extras, pretty much any other name brand player will do just fine. Just read the online reviews before purchase to make sure you’re not getting her a lemon.
Advice: check out www.woot.com daily. They have a different deal every day, and they offer mp3 players with regularity, from refurbished ipods to Zunes (brown!) to Sandisk products and beyond.
The hubby and I both got our mp3 players off of Woot. In fact, I got a 256 SanDisk from Woot about two years ago, (for $19.99 plus their standard $5.00 shipping), then my music collection outgrew it. Just a few months ago, I found a 1gig SanDisk on Woot for $14.99 plus the $5.00 shipping. So I got one about four times the size for less money. Hubby’s is just like mine, but mine is pink and his is silver. We’ve been very pleased with them.
When I log onto the computer first thing in the morning, the very first thing I do is check Woot!
