Is the big Ipod (the one with the 30 or 60 gig hard drive) suitable for taking to the gym and exercising with? How about running? Will it skip and break it. Right now I’m torn between buying the Nano and the regular IPod. Is the stopwatch function on the regular Ipod?
The more it gets moved around while playing, the higher the chance ther harddrive will fail. If you plan to use it like that, you are much better off getting a Nano.
Get a nano. Regular iPod is a hard disk, not a flash disk, which will start acting funny after you drop it or jump around too much. It’s not like you’ll need a huge selection on the treadmill, anyway. (The nano’s got the stopwatch too).
I bought a Nano last fall specifically to run with. Some people say you can run with the hard-drive based iPods, but just about every runner’s forum has a million people saying that you can’t.
The Nano has a stopwatch, holds ~50 hours of music/podcasts, and runs just fine.
A couple of guys at my gym have their iPods in straps on their upper arms instead of clipped to their waist. It seems like they get bounced around a lot less there.
I have been running with my iPod (3rd Gen, 20 Gig) for about a year and a half. (Okay, not continuously.) Every once in a while, I drop it. It has never skipped. Perhaps miraculously, it still works.
The regular iPod uses a Hard drive and memory buffer. The hard drive must spin every 20 minutes or so to fill the memory buffer (More often if your music is at a high bit rate). If the iPod is jostled while the hard drive is spinning it can skip or freeze.
Cliping it to your upper arm causes much less shock then clipping it to your waist and holding it your hand even less. From what I have seen on the ipod forums few people have problems with the ipod on their arm.
The Nano uses flash memory and does not have a hard drive. This and its small size make it ideal for exercise. Unless you really need the space I would go with the Nano. There are plenty of ways to rotate your music if your library is larger than what your iPod can hold, iPod lounge is a great source of information on the iPod.
The third gens are beasts. I haven’t heard of a single one breaking. My 4rth gen on the other hand has broken on me 4 times and I don’t even run with it.