To Ipod or not to Ipod, that is the biggest question.

In My Humble Opinion
21

It happens to me all the time, these days. But I should mention that I’ve had my unit for a year and a half, and my model is from right before they started making their new improved batteries. All of my troubles now seem to be related to the fact that I only get about an hour of battery life out of the thing when it’s fully charged. I heard that wiping the hard drive and updating the firmware could remedy this, but it hasn’t helped me.

It’s not a big deal to me, though - there are options for getting the Apple people to install a new battery, or you can also do it yourself. Me, I’ll probably just buy a new one eventually, because the ultimate ease-of-use and convenience really makes me happy. Plus, it seems that the iPod is a constantly evolving and improving technology - it just keeps getting better, in the same way that other evolving technologies (like DVD players) have done.

I would suggest getting different headphones/earbuds than the ones that come with the iPod, though, for two reasons: 1) the white iPod headphones, to me, just scream “I have an iPod!! Mug me!!” and 2) the Sennheiser earbuds that I ordered sound better to me anyway.

22

I’ve owned 3 iPods since the roll out of the original 5 GB model and have been satisfied with all of them

5G ist gen, loved the intuitive interface, hated the (lack of) hard drive space, my battery life has been 12 hours plus with this model
10G 1st gen, same as the 5G

i never really liked the redesign of the 3G iPods, the touch sensitive controls were too sensitive, the reduction in battery life to 8 hours (due to a physically smaller battery) was also annoying, and having the function buttons moved to a line above the trackwheel seemed non-intuitive and un-Apple-like, making something less intuitive on purpose, sounds very micro$oftian, however, the OS was more stable and had cooler features, still, not enough to make me upgrade from my 10G

and my current one, a 40G 4G Clickwheel model, i highly reccomend the clickwheel models, you have the touch sensitive trackwheel of the 2G/3G models and the intuitive NESW layout of the 1G/2G models, with the enhanced OS of the 3G, and the battery life of the 1G/2G (i get easily 12 hours plus) this is what the iPod should have been all along, it’s the closest to perfection the iPod has come yet

as far as the battery issues go, bear in mind if you skip songs a lot, listen to audiobooks (or music longer than 20 minutes per song) or use the backlight heavilly, it will cut into your battery life, Apple’s 10 hour battery life ESTIMATE is based on turning on the iPod, pressing play and then leaving it alone, no pausing, no skipping, no using the backlight

Apple does have a $99 battery repair available on their website, you can dispatch your iPod to them and they’ll install a replacement battery as well, not to plug my store or anything, but we also sell iPod batteries and can either do the install for you, for less than Apple charges, or we can send you the battery, the pry tool, and the instructions on how to do it yourself, it’s not that hard

i’ve had nothing but good luck with my iPods, then again, i do work for a reseller/service provider and have taken apart plenty of iPods to do battery replacements, so i’m biased, to me it’s an easily repaired non-issue

23

I bought a 20GB RCA Lyra Jukebox when they first came out. It cost me less than half of what an IPod was going for at that time. Since I bought it, I’ve bought other RCA Lyras as gifts, and I bought a 40GB Lyra as well.

I have friends who own Ipods. I’ve read lots of MP3 reviews. Ipod fans tell you that the interface is unbeatable, battery life is great, the unit is light and other MP3s can’t compete. Techies criticize the RCA Lyra for its slow reaction time (you have to wait a second or two to switch songs), and bigger heavier appearance. They admit the sound is excellent, but why USB2 and not Firewire?

I call bull****. My MP3 player cost HALF of an Ipod. A 40GB Lyra on Ebay costs $200 or so. Sound is great. Never had battery problems. Comes STANDARD with a carrier, car kit, stuff that can cost a lot extra with an Ipod. Never been stolen – looks like a walkman; I’ve left it on planes and around the office and it’s not been swiped. I don’t need to switch songs to often with 20-40 GB, and a USB2 is plenty fast enough for me given my needs. I’d rather have a great library and something that looks like a walkman than get mugged on the subway or pay lots extra for both the jukebox and accessories which should come with the thing.

24

I have a 20gig Creative Nomad Zen which I’ve been very happy with. It was hundreds of dollars cheaper than a similarly sized iPod, and has served me very well. It’s not as sleek or stylish as the iPod, but the battery life is good, the sound is good, and it holds all my CDs. And much cheaper.

Note: when I got my Zen, the software that came with it became unstable once you have thousands of songs. They may have improved it since then, but if not there’s an excellent program called Notmad Explorer (it’s made by Red Chair software, I believe) which I highly recommend.

25

When my boyfriend saw my mp3 player, he said it looked ugly, like a tin can. So I said “well, there’s really no rash of people stealing tin cans out of people’s cars, now is there?”

I almost bought an RCA Lyra. It was definitely the second player on my list, the deciding factor that made me get the Zen was that it was twenty dollars cheaper (on sale or something at the time). It’s a really good player too, and I’d also recommend it to the OP.

The only mp3 player I tried out that I hated more than the iPod was the Archos. I’ve heard lots of bad reviews of Archos players.

26

Oh, yeah, add to my list of dislikes “getting mugged on the subway”. :wink:

Wow, 40 GB for under $200? You can’t find an iPod listed at that price on eBay!

Rather telling is that whenever you hear a new MP3 player come to market, there will be an inevitable comparison to the iPod. Whether the comparison is made by the company itself (“Ours is the iPod killer!”) or by the product reviewers ("…but we here at Tech Weekly wanted to know: How does it stand up to the iPod?") the iPod is what gives rival product designers nightmares.

27

For the record, I have had exactly the opposite experience with Apple support. Every transaction I have had with them has been quick, free, and with knowledgeable support. In fact, they have so impressed me with their service that I plan to purchase all my future computers from them.

My iPod has worked just fine (I got it a few months ago). However, the iBook I bought over a year ago was plagued with problems. Every few months it would start to crash with greater frequency. I sent it back several times and it always returned fixed (for a while).

Eventually, they discovered that it was a design problem with a certain number of them, and they replaced my more than a year old laptop with a brand new (and much faster/bigger/better) one. Not only that, but they had the class to extend the warranty on those flawed units an extra year at no extra cost to the owners. Every time I called, the support person was nice and knew what they were talking about. I asked enough technical questions that I’m sure they were not just reading from a script.

Every time (save one) that I had to send my laptop back, it was on their dime, and the round trip time was less than a week. The one time that it took longer was because they had made a mistake processing the exchange when I got my replacement. After a week had gone by, I called and asked for the status. They became aware of their error, apologized profusely, and gave me an extra 512MB of RAM for my trouble. My new computer arrived a week later.

FWIW, I love my iPod, but you are paying a premium for it (like any Mac hardware). If cost is very important to you, you’ll be happier with something else.

28

First I’d like to thank everybody for all the answers. It’s given me something to think about. I never knew there were so many different types of players.

For those of you with the various Mp3 players, can you buy a strap that lets you attach it to your arm for when you are at the gym?

How do they perform while exercising?

How intuitive is the software for making playlists and that sort of thing? Can any of them work with Winamp?

Here’s a stranger one, how many of them work with Linux?

29

Oh, and something else I just thought about.

How many of them require proprietary headphones?

I know that the Ipod has a proprietary battery, does the same hold true for all of them?

30

Mine works with Winamp and with Linux. Also with Macs!

31

I would be very surprised if any of them use proprietary headphones. That would be suicide. Some may have proprietary wired-remote connectors though, but all should allow regular headphones to be attached.

32

If you want an MP3 player that you can strap to your arm, you want something like the Creative MuVo. No hard drive. That makes them smaller, lighter, and not subject to skipping.

33

How about the iPod Mini? 4 gigs, $230-something most places. I’m not normally a gadget freak at all, but some wonderful friends chipped in and gave me one for my birthday, and I’m i looooove. I carry the darn thing everywhere, but mostly on my daily commute (an hor each way), and on long car trips (just drove 8+ hours each way to Toronto, and it was amazing not to have to deal with half a dozen cassettes - I don’t have a CD player in my car - or the lack of decent radio stations in some places). And it fits in my pocket, which was a pain with a CD player, and it’s much smller than the regular iPod.

34

Ooo ooo! I have a question!

I already have my 200+ cd collection ripped to MP3 on my hard drive, so that I can write them to CD to use with my in car CD/MP3 player, what I need to know is whether the IPod would be compatible with these existing MP3 files, or if I would have to go through the hassle of ripping them all again using Itunes?

35

I would assume that it would read previously ripped Mp3s. Otherwise what would be the point of having one.

I spent a lot of time looking at that website yesterday. Have these hit the market yet? It said that it wouldn’t ship until December 13, 2004, and I am all about the instant gratification. I like that you can buy an arm strap that you can use while exercising.

If it doesn’t have a hard drive, how does it work? Is it a flash drive? I’ve noticed that the Dell weighs a bit under 7 ounces.

After looking at some of those players, I’ve realized that having it play in the car would be seriously cook as well.

36

I have an Archos Multimedia. I bought it over two years ago, so it’s been superseded now (by the GMini 400, among other things), but I love it for many reasons:

First, and most important, you can shove in a flash card from a digital camera and copy over your photos. I bought it mainly for this reason, as I was going on a six-month trip. It worked flawlessly - I came back with 9,300 photos (around 10GB) safely stored, despite being copied in heat, rain and on sandy beaches etc.

Second, you can view the photos on its built-in screen, to verify that they are on there. You can also link it to a TV to show the photos as a slide show.

Third, you can store videos on it, using the Divx format. Rip a DVD down to a Divx file in the appropriate resolution and you can store several movies on the device (a typical film weighs in at about 700-800MB once ripped). Ideal for long flights!

Fourth, it has 20GB capacity, so plenty of space for lots of songs, still allowing space for photos and videos.

Fifth, it can record via a built-in or external microphone, or a line-in, directly into MP3 format.

Sixth, the interface is easy to use.

Beats the iPod into the ground, IMO. Sure, it might not look quite as sleek, but it does loads more. (At the time I bought it, you couldn’t use iPods to store photos. I believe you can now, maybe. But they still have no viewing facility.)

37

I’ve read there is a new player (iRiver?) which you can copy to without wires. Not that useful a feature for me, but very cool. Something that fits on the arm is useful in the gym. Cost is not that important to me; but value is. I’ve heard good things about many of the non-Ipod players. The Ipods are very good, but many of the people who like them have not had other players. The question: is it worth paying a very big premium for the (to me) small advantages? I’ll bet a lot of muggers know what an Ipod looks like! :slight_smile:

38

What sort of card slot does it have? I’m assuming Compact Flash?

I’m in the market for a hard-drive mp3 player and a hard-drive photo album that takes CF cards. If i could get both in one i’d be very happy.

39

You’re in luck. The older model that I have takes both SmartMedia and Compact Flash cards. You need an adaptor - you plug the adaptor into the port at the base of the player when you need it, then just shove the card in and choose “Copy”.

Here is the page for the slightly newer version of the same product. The second pic down on the right-hand side (“Photos to Go”) shows a SmartMedia card inserted into the adapter.

From the site:

There’s also the fancier AV400, which has a built-in Compact Flash reader, and takes an adapter for other card types.
As I said, I highly recommend the Archos player. It’s an incredibly useful gadget.

40

You have to do it all again in iTunes. iTunes attaches a special code onto mp3 files; without it, the files won’t transfer to the player. My boyfriend spent weeks reentering his CDs in his computer so they would go into iTunes and could fit on the iPod.