ipods: good or bad?

catspring

i'm thinkin of gettin an ipod for christmas and i was wondering what people who own them think of them.
also, i've heard that once the battery runs out (not just cos it needs charged but cos it's too old or whatever) that they cannot be replaced, anyone know what the story is with this?

cheers in advance

ven0m

iPods are fine - much better than the ones by Sony or Philips. I don't have too many complaints about mine, but mine is one of the new Gen 4's, which don't seem to have the problems with batteries that previous models have.... apparently.... allegedly....supposedly.... LOL

::: ven0mous :::

Nuttzz

Good, I love mine, but they are pricey

koneko

Overrated. Style products. Far too expensive for what you get.

ruprect

ipods are good, irivers are better. the battery can be replaced but it must be opened up to do so, not like changing walkman batteries, you'd need to be confident with electronics or get a shop to do it. replacement batteries can be got which last far longer than the crap one it is sent out with

buy from ebay not over here

krinpit

koneko wrote:

Far too expensive for what you get.

You can get one on eBay for much less. It should also arrive in time for Christmas.

Ipod wouldn't be my first choice, but I've used one and I had no complaints

catspring

ok, thanks so far;)
just wondering then to the few of you who said ipods wouldn't be a first choice, what would/do you use?

i have a mini disc player thatn i got about 4 years ago but it's a pain in the ass cos you have to record all your discs yourself, and i never seem to have time to do it. cd players are kinda bulky (too big for pockets).
any suggestions would be appreciated

BolBill

Buy a Creative Mp3 player, they are sooooooooooooooooooo good, well mine is anyway

seagizmo

Got one of the 30Gb 3rd Generation ages ago, travelled around the world with my entire music collection.. what more could you want.

Saying that, the battery has started to show signs that it's losing charge but I am not too annoyed, I have got what I think is value for money. I suppose that is what it's about...

SG

krinpit

I bought the Dell DJ over the summer. I got it for $190 on ebay.com (which currently converts to €146.72).

The battery life, firmware and sound are all really good. Plus, Dell continually improve the firmware, which you can download from the website at any time.

The hard drive is 15GB, which is ample for my requirements. It also doubles as a portable harddrive (as all good MP3 players do).

Jim

It used to be, not anymore.

I remember trying to order a 3G one ages ago from the Apple Store, the guys in there barely knew what an iPod was, so I ordered off the net. Couple of months later Apple started their advertising campaign and suddenly the store was full of billboards and iPod posters.

Then apple went for quantity over quality. Wouldn't buy one again. Only thing which tipped it in my favour originally was the weight, half the weight of the Zen.

dudara

I got an iPod about a month ago, after going through two minidisc players. I am so in love with the damned thing. I will admit without hesitation that I bought it for its looks. It's a thing of beauty and the click-wheel is a nifty little idea. It's a nice size, and has a bit of weight to reassure you. The silver metal back is nice, though I think that it would be better burnished. I'm a big fan, but I know that there are better players out there, but for looks iPod is really the best.

I think that Apple designers are being really smart though, because there are so many ways in which it can be improved, which means that they can keep bringing out new gen models. Colour screens, etc come to mind

IrishMike

Have me a 40 gig ipod. Love it to bits.

neokenzo

Just got my 20G 4th Gen ipod and I dont have any complaints at all. Sound is great and looks great!

Jim

What are the headphones like?
The ones I got with mine were dreadful.

seagizmo

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

It used to be, not anymore.

I remember trying to order a 3G one ages ago from the Apple Store, the guys in there barely knew what an iPod was, so I ordered off the net. Couple of months later Apple started their advertising campaign and suddenly the store was full of billboards and iPod posters.

Then apple went for quantity over quality. Wouldn't buy one again. Only thing which tipped it in my favour originally was the weight, half the weight of the Zen.

I was wondering about that, but spent the weekend driving around Ireland with a mate who had a 4th generation one, now he charged it before we left Dublin and we did (we counted) about 10-12 hours in the car over the weekend. It was still going strong (using iTrip) pumping out the tunes.... was well impressed! My vote is for iPod but I do use macs

Maybe you were just unlucky?

About minidisk, I had one of really old ones, same problem too bulky and pain in the neck to get all your songs on disks, also my minidisk was so old that it was too heavy to have it your pocket, it was so heavy it pull your trousers down :P

SG

scargill

the whole ipod v 'everything else' has been done to death. its starting to get boring !!

Most people with iPods defend them to death. People without iPods will pick holes in this that and the other.

So I think you are better off just having a look around at comparisons between all the different MP3 players and deciding for yourself. If you ask about iPods specifically you are just going to get lots of pro/anti iPod jibberish in this thread !!

You could try looking here for some ideas:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/4502-6497_7-0.html?cdi=5502852


For the record i have an 3rd gen iPod - 15GB. Got it for birthday 18 months ago. Not a single problem.

Jim

I agree.

People making a purchase should research what exactly they are getting, spec / quality / price. Lest they be a victim of clever marketing.

catspring

the reason i asked here is cos there is no longer a decent electrical shop in derry that you can get to without a car and also coz i know very little about technical stuff.
anyhoo, thanks to people for their opinions, i think it's useful to get frist hand info from people who own ipods, and don't know anyone (in person) who does.
thanks for the link scargill

monkeyfudge

I think the iPod is great. But then I'm a mac user so I wouldn't even really consider getting anything else.

I got the iPod when it first came out... and paid more for it than you'd pay for the new colour one now... bleh... The battery still works just fine on it.

I was at a party 2 weeks ago and lots of people had brand new iPods, but they thought mine was really cool as it had a whole retro thing going for it... funny how an 1st Gen iPod could be seen as retro.

But over the last few months I've seen alot of iPods around town on people. You can spot the distinctive white head phones. Too bad muggers can also spot that...

talking_walnut

You should think through exactly what you need from the mp3 player before you do anything else. Decide what features you want and then have a look to see what player matches best. Things like hard disk size, sound quality and battery life are probably what'll matter most to you (you said you're not technically savy so other features probably won't matter too much to you).

Here's some player's I'd advice looking at:
Creative Touch
Iriver H140 (or one of they're other players)
Cowon iAUDIO M3
Rio Karma

And try here for reviews of many of the players.

Bananayoghurt

ipods are pretty good, im onto my second after losing my first, they are alot quiter than most other hard drive players, you can't actually hear the drive, some of the others like the zen dukebox are very noticeably hard drives whizzing around. Only prob i ever had was with the software that comes with it, after loading playlists to copy to the ipod it often only finds 2 or three of the songs, even though they are all in the same directory, prolly just a problem with my one though as i haven't heard anyone else complain

johntf008

I would get a Creative player. I lost my one, and replaced it with an iPod, which broke after a week. Two weeks later, my replacement arrived from Apple. The only thing that's better is smart playlists in iTunes. The rest is ****. As soon as I can afford it I'm going back to Creative...

Bottle_of_Smoke

what are they like for skippage?

pisses me off not being able to jog with a minidisc, had a creative muvo 64mb i got for €40 in Dunnes which was great but its stopped working unexplainedly

Ciaran500

Any HDD player loads about 3 songs into flash memory. During those 3 songs it will not skip, but if the HDD doens't get enough time while playing those sone it will skip while its loading the 4th. So its skip free as long as it get a brief (2-3sec) break every so often.

I've used my friends iPod alot and I think its a good player its far to expensive for its lack of features.

steveland?

I'd like an IPod... in fact i'd prefer one to my XClef, but atm i'm happy with my XClef... 20GB but it's heavy as fuuuck and looks atrocious. Grand though in the inside pocket where no-one will see it but it's a fickle little fella and it broke after a 5"(approx) fall onto the table. The hard drive in it was fudged royally.


Got a new hard drive anyways and it's quite simple (thanks to the good folks on the computers forum) to replace and set up and there's new firmware released sporadically.

Still I'd prefer an IPod cos theyre now cheaper than what I paid for my XClef last year

Xithus

If I was in the market for a new player (Iv got an ipod which im happy enough with) Id get the new sony. Great battery life, smaller than an ipod and the sound is excellent.

Burago

I've had mine (3G 20gb) for almost a year now and there's nothing bad I can say about it. It's the most simple to use HDD based mp3 player I've come across, it just works. It's also by far the best looking. The Rio Karma has recieved some very good reviews so if you'd like something different from the norm.