Ta for the replies, I am definately getting one of these things ASAP.
Really want an iPod, but I head with the HD versions (as most iPosds with significant memory are), as opposed to the Flash memory versions, there are skipping problems, etc. Anyone had experiences like this? I want to use it for working out and being in the gym and/or power walking. Need to know if it’s worthwhile. I want the space (my collectionis obscene), but if it’s a problem pf player reliability, I may as well go for flash and upgrade memory.
Help?
Inky
PS - the shuffle just doesn’t sound like it cuts the mustard, either…
I’m not a real work out person but every day the bus I take has to struggle up a nasty hill. It takes it 10-15 minutes and the bus vibrates so much I’m sure my teeth are going to fall out but my 'pod takes it without a hitch.
I could just be very lucky of course. YMMV
And that’s an iPod HD, not the flash memory version?
Hmm…Innnntruuuusting…
Isn’t there supposed to be a band so you can wear it on your arm for when you work out?
Inky
Totally igornant about iPods.
Don’t have an iPod, but ripping your CD’s to hard drive is definitely recommended: it takes a while if you do them all in one go, but a few a day will only take a few minutes - I use iTunes, and if you use it on line it will automatically search a database for you and enter the album, artist and song titles. As **Ghanima ** says, with a decent set of speakers it’s like having your own radio station - set it to “shuffle” and I’ve got about 10 days of songs without repeats, and I haven’t even finished ripping my CD collection yet.
Anybody have any experience with the Dell DJ?
I’ve taken my HD based ipod running and haven’t had any problems. Like the other poster, this may just be luck though. As for wristbands, I’ve only seen them for the iPod mini, but there could be some out there for the larger versions too.
Is it still true that you only get one free phone support call for the Apple iPod versus one year of as many free help calls as you need for the hp ipod? Last I heard, Apple also makes you pay a fee to ship an under warranty ipod for servicing. With HP, it’s free. Might be something to consider if you’re using a PC.
Oh, my 20 hpod is great, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
I might be in the market as well, but I want to use it for running. I’m less concerned about skipping and more concerned about how sweat proof they are.
Using the iPod as a portable drive is not something that I think a lot of people think about. It’s easy enough to do, you just have to open the volume yourself and copy stuff over. It’s just not something done through iTunes. Looking inside the hidden directory, I have no idea how it’s organizing the files. There are 50 sub-directories, each with at least 500 mb of files. Anyway, it’s formatted as FAT32, which could cause problems if you tried to put something really big on it.
I don’t really like iTunes auto-organizing, at least how it organizes the actual file locations. If you’re a guy like me who uses WinAmp 5 more than iTunes (faster boot times, smaller screen presence, and less memory usage), it’s handy to have albums in their own sub-directories. If you let iTunes auto-organize, it starts putting everything into directories by artist. This is really bad if you’ve got soundtracks or compilations, as you’ve gone from one directory to however many artists there are on that soundtrack or compilation. Plus, it can make it difficult to navigate inside the iPod if you have a ton of artists. At one point, I had almost 600 artists but only about 300 albums. I cut that down to 185 artists and 266 albums (I deleted some individual files and removed the distinction between discs in the album field for sets of two or three CDs) by changing the artist field for soundtracks to be the same as the album field and then just put the actual artist in the title field along with the title of the song.
Thanks for all the feedback! I must definitely check out these other players, I hadn’t realized there were more (all the ones I’ve seen are like 128-256mb memory which isn’t enough). Recommendations muchos appreciated.
I love my iPod.
But as regards listening to it in the car I’d reccomend a tape connector over an FM connector. I have the Griffin iTrip and it pretty much sucks - crappy sound, it picks up motor noise, and it’s impossible to change stations on it safely while driving. Last week it even picked up a rap station when I was about 70 miles from the nearest radio station that would play rap and 40 miles from any radio transmitter or town (Montana = still empty).
I have another FM transmitter I bought for $20. It takes batteries and only plays on 88.1,3,5, and 88.7 but the sound is better and it’s a snap to change stations.
Whistlepig
I bought a Dell DJ20 (gen2) two months ago.
Although I’m happy with the player I think it would have beem worthwhile paying the extra $100 for a 20 gig iPod.
Pros:
Cheaper
Great sound
Long 12 Hour+ Battery Life.
Can copy music to AND from the DJ with the Dell software.
Sturdy.
Cons:
Bigger + Heavier
Comes with horrible earbuds.
The barrel interface is kind of cumbersome.
No one is developing Dell DJ hacks and software.
Few 3rd party accessories.
Poor driver support (in my experience)
No EQ settings to normalize audio from different sources.
Unstable? (I’ve had one crash)
No extras (games, day planners, address books, etc.,)
This is all really interesting. i’m in the market, too. Can I ask a couple of basic questions?
My boyfriend claims an iPod doesn’t play mp3s, but here it seems like it does. Which is the truth?
He also says the batteries are not rechargable but he admits he may be speaking of an older model.
I want to play both my mp3s and rip all my CDs and put the songs on there. Which is better, this iPod or iRiver?
Thanks!
Yes, the iPod does play mp3s. Most of the songs on my ipod are in this format. The battery is rechargable, but like all rechargables will stop taking a charge after awhile. When this happens, you can send the ipod back along with a fee (I think of $100) and Apple will send you a refurbished ipod with a new battery. Or, you could buy a kit from the internet that contains a new battery and replacement instructions. I don’t know about the iRiver, but the iPod will let you play your mp3s and CDs (provided that they’re not the new copy protected “CD”).
If you do decide to get a portable mp3 player, I would urge you to look into other brands. Browsing the thread, I see that Dell, iRiver (which is what I have), and some others have already been mentioned. The iPod has gained far more name recognition than any other brand, and there are certainly reasons for that, but I’ve found that the iRiver iHP-120 is approximately as good. I haven’t used an iPod enough to make a fair comparison, though.
I’d guess I’d recommend getting portable player, because it’s a lot more convenient than a CD player, especially in the car. You just need a tape adapter or radio adapter. I have the tape kind, and it sounds better than you’d think, and they’re only about $20.
The iRiver will also let you play mp3 or ripped CDs (and wma, and oog, and according to what I’ve seen and heard, can also play ripped DVDs using the firmware released to all the regions other than US).
What really pissed me off about iTunes - and I guess, by extension, iPod - was that I downloaded two tracks from them, and found out that I couldn’t convert them to .mp3 because of the DRM protection. So now I have songs that can only be played from my PC (I had a smaller, very simple mp3 player at that time) because I don’t have an iPod. Very annoying. If I take an mp3 that I buy at musicmatch.com, I can convert it to iTunes with no problem. But not so in reverse.
Huh? There are several ways to bypass Apple’s AAC DRM. I ain’t going into them here unless I get an admin’s okay, but take a look at Slashdot sometime. Everytime there’s a new DRM scheme brought out, there’s a story soon afterwards that it’s been cracked.
Well, I have no doubt that there are workarounds to the issue - it doesn’t change the fact that I found it annoying and unnecessary. I purchase a lot of music, and have no desire to have to apply a workaround just to convert them to one of the most popular media formats out there.
To me, it felt like they were trying to force my hand towards buying an iPod. Which is fine - I just switched to a different service for buying my music, and bought a non-iPod player.
If you do a “Get Info” for the songs, then click the “Part of a compilation” checkbox in the info box (the one with artist/album/track number/etc.), iTunes will move all the tracks into a “Compilations” directory instead – e.g., “Compilations/album-name/songs-in-album”.
You can even set iTunes’ preferences to hide the artists who appear only in compilations, which compliments this feature nicely.
Ripping - Transferring dozens of cds may seem like a big task but it’s really not. Just start off with your most listened to cds and rip a few a day while you are doing other stuff on your computer. Eventually you’ll have all your cds on there and you won’t spend a whole weekend ripping.
Jogging - My girlfriend has had an 3rd generation ipod for over a year and jogs with it many miles per week. It has never skipped except for recently. If you a hardcore runner, go for a flash based player where there are no moving parts. I use my 4G ipod for jogging and have never had problems, but I don’t jog nearly as much.
Size - Most people don’t know you can use the iPod as a hard disk also. I was originally getting the 20gb model but I am very glad I got the 40 gig model instead. I have 20 gigs full of music and I use the extra 20 as a portable hard disk. My friend just got the mini a week ago and already wishes he got a bigger model.
Discounts/Promotions- Make sure you ask about any discounts they are giving! I bought my 40 gig model for only $169… That includes a education discount because I’m in college and a $200 rebate for buying a ibook at the same time. They are no longer doing the rebate but Apple stores do give education discounts.
Playing it in your car - Warning, the FM transmitters (ie. Griffin iTrip) sound quality sucks in most cars. I have tried them in a lot of cars, and the sound quality ranges from totally unlistenable in my Mazda to pretty good (in a Lexus).
Instead of a FM transmitter, you have 3 options which will all be way better sound quality. The best option is a direct patch cable to car stereo, but you need a input jack on the back of your stereo. Most cars don’t have that. Another good option is to get a tape adapter like somebody already mentioned. Finally, you can get what’s called a FM Modulator. This is just like the iTrip except it sends the signal directly to your antenna input through a cord so the sound quality will be much better. They are for sale on the net for usually the same price as an iTrip.