Design 'I Want One' factor Storage capacity Transfer speed Audio quality Size and weight Grows on you - becomes a friend....

iTunes software Battery life? iPod earbuds sound good but do not fit in my (or any humans) ears... Affected by static in coat pocket - causes random switch off occasionally Expensive White iPod earbuds are a green flag to muggers... ;-)

A Design Classic How do you start to review a design icon? Well here goes anyway... This is a gorgeously designed bit of kit. The look and feel is fantastic. The presentation from the box on in is excellent. I am using the iPod with a Windows PC running Win 2K Pro via a Belkin USB 2.0 card. The first thing to note is that iTunes for Windows is a poor piece of software that appears to have been ported from the Apple OS and not written for Windows... it is cumbersome and a resource hog. It does not mount the iPod as a drive with folders and does not allow copying from iPod to PC. After trying iTunes, Musicmatch and others I finally found Anapod Explorer http://redchairsoftware.com and things finally started to work how they should. Sound quality is very good for an MP3 player (ripped using MusicMatch Jukebox at 192kbps) and transfer speed is amazing (whole album in 10-12 seconds). Battery life is not as good as quoted and using 'random' shortens this further... they should have fitted a bigger battery - there is room internally. Storage space (even with 10GB model) means all my CDs + downloads don't fill the drive. Useful for storing phone numbers, text files etc... A really neat trick is using Anapod Extreamer to stream music from iPod over wireless LAN to laptop in the garden!! A fine piece of design and with 25-50% more battery life it is near to being perfect....

Similar Products Used:

Various CD and Cassette walkman players. Siemens SL-45 MP3 player. Sony WM-D6 Pro.

Cool factor..... High speed USB2/Firewire transfers. Storage capacity. Design + build quality.

Needs a case (not supplied). Battery life? Earbuds not comfortable and a bad fit in ear - this means you have to have the volume near max. Plastic front scratches very easily.

Having examined the competition I finally scraped up the cash and bought a 10GB iPod. Software installed fine (on Win 2K Pro system), transfered music with ease. Windows users without Firewire will have to buy a USB/FW cable. Audio quality is good despite so-so earbuds, and the ability to carry all my CDs around is impressive. I use the iPod to and from work and at work as an audio source to test P.A. systems. Ability to transfer data files is a useful bonus, the software is mostly intuitive and everyone who sees it wants to handle it.... high 'wow' factor. All in all a polished (!) product, well specced, designed and built - buy a case immediately if you don't want it scratched ;-) iPod still leads the pack in portable mp3 players, but look out for competition from Dell, Rio and Creative....

Design, long lasting battery, ease of use.

Ear buds hurt my ears after a hour or so, have to have Firewire to connect (not a problem for any modern Mac, but some PC's)

What can you say? The iPod is just one very well made piece of equipment. The more I use it, the more impressed I am by it. Easy to use, easy to find music, the battery lasts a long time and recharges quickly. I've got over 100 CD's on my iPod and it is only 60% full. Everything about it is so well designed. -- it's worth the money because it will still do it's job 10 years from now.

Similar Products Used:

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Looks, great durable design, space capacity is off the charts, remote, sound quality, on and on.

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For a very long time, since the birth of MP3 players, I had refused to buy one simply because I was convinced, being an audio snob, that the sound quality was just going to suck. This was of course when MP3's were available through things like Napster, and although some MP3's sounded decent, most, for me, sounded disgusting. But, sometimes one has to sacrifice one thing for another, and in this case I thought I was sacrificing sound quality for extreme organization and efficiency buying an iPod. I simply couldn't stand using a CD or Minidisc player anymore, with no viewable track names and the constant changing of CD's. So I recently bought one of the new 20GB iPod's. Although I do have limewire and download the occasional MP3, I still find the audio on those things, due to their EXTREME compression, to be horrid. When I first plugged my iPod headphones in and listened to a track I had on MP3 from Limewire, I was immediatley disappointed. Now I've been using the Apple iTunes Music Store, because I find the songs to be worth the 99cent charge. Why? Because every song on the music store has been compressed and transfered into AAC format (just a higher-quality compression technique), and the songs sound nearly CD-quality. I never thought I'd say that, but it's really true! Maybe I'm just used to the sound by now, but I also have nice headphones (Bang Olufsen A8's) so that helps significantly. It really does sound fantastic! So I couldn't be more in love with the thing. It is the perfect electronic - worth every penny. I have downloaded every CD in my freakin house and all my MP3's onto this thing, and I still have like 12GB left! The space capacity is insane! Plus, all the buttons are beautifully backlight and touch-sensitive. The remote is great, and the iPod, besides holding hundreds of times the music of a CD or Minidisc player, is also incredibly small (and as light as my little minidisc player!). Buy one!

Great design Great Sound Small and light.

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After spending a very long time trying to pick out an MP3 player to buy and being confused by conflicting reviews and pros and cons, I just happened to walk past an Apple Centre and decided to check out the iPod. I had the chance to listen to and really get a good feel for the unit. My luck was in because they had just released a 30 gig model. The firewire connection is extremely good and as fast as you could want. the lat thing you want to do it sit around waiting for your mp3 player to sync with your PC. The supplied software installed perfectly and without error. I'm not a fan of Musicmatch but its ok for syncing the iPod. The real pro here is both the great quality sound and the fact that after loading all of my songs (2549) I still have 17gig of space left and can use it as a portable hard disk drive. Because I rip my songs at 256k or higher, they tend to be large files. So carrying them ALL is a great bonus that most other players dont allow for. All in all....I'm in love with this unit.