Rating: 
Summary: Makes some sacrifices for more memory?
Review: My old 10GB Ipod has been very good to me, and I really enjoy it. But, I have no clue at all why the new generation of Ipods have a much less battery life than the old ones.
Many of the features on the new Ipods make them better. Take the fact that the memory sizes have increased dramatically, and the design of the front controls is also much improved. Also, now they are all compatible with both Windows and Mac computers at the same time.
However, that really doesn't explain very well why the battery life has decreased dramatically, about 20%. Ipod's battery life wasn't that great to begin with, at 10 hours. Now, it is even worse at only 8 hours with a full charge. I really don't know why Apple ended up making such a significant unimprovement, but managed to make many other improvements.
It depends on how much you listen to your music if you want this thing. I probably wouldn't get it because I would wear out the battery life quickly if I did. But, if you manage to get some serious mileage out of this thing, then get it. 30 GB is A LOT of memory, and I'd only recommend this thing to anyone with one killer music library.
Rating: 
Summary: Apple is not good.
Review: The iPod is OK (3 stars) but Apple has terrible support and customer service especially for iPods and more especially for Windows-based iPods. An example-Apple is deleting suggestions/complaints for iPods from its discussion boards. Further, the iPod has many formidable competitors (cheaper and better or similar features, size, and style) coming out including the Philips HDD100.
Rating:
Summary: Consider first...
Review: I absolutely love my iPod. I mean LOVE it! I use it everyday approximately 7 - 10 hours a week, and I've had it for months. It sounds great. It's small. It's awsome.Many other good reviews have already been writtien about the iPod's features and supposed bad points. I'd love to refute some complaints I've read, but I'm going to limit my review to whitch amount of MB's is needed for this unit. I own the 20MB. Let me assure you--it's more than enough memory. I have mp3's on the thing that have been on there since the day I bought it. I have yet to exaust its capacity yet. In my mind, the 10MB is just a tad too little while 30MB is excessive and unnecessary. 20MB is plenty, folks. The only way I could see 30MB being absolutely necessary is if you want to use none of your PC's hard drive for any mp3's whatsoever. But that just isn't practical. Usually the way it works is you have 20-40MB on your hard drive and once you've compiled and organized a full collection of an artist or a playlist you'd like to have on the iPod, you then load it onto it. I admit, if I were buying my iPod again, I would go for 30MB; that's just my nature. But it's completely unnecessary. 20MB is a dream. 10MB leaves you wanting. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Good Until You Need Support
Review: I had this device for a little bit over a year, and I like most people didn't opt for the extended warranty. In short, it died as soon as the warranty expired. It's the way hardware is and I'm fine with that, but Apple's support wanted to charge me $250 to have it repaired/replaced. That is almost the same amount as a new one, and certainly more than most of their competitors. When it worked, it was great; a device I truly enjoyed, but once it starts having issues, you better look for another device; Apple wont be of much help you.
Rating:
Summary: not so bad
Review: not so bad, good amount of memory, fair battery, decent sound. overall a-okay. problems: battery (not replaceable) & loses charge overtime. Go here for a free 20Gb ipod:
http://www.tech4free.com/default.aspx?ref=117793
Rating: 
Summary: Poor compatability for all the hype
Review: While the iPod is great for the amount of music you can store on it, Apple has done a poor job with creating a product that lasts. The battery life is minimal (less than 4 hours and I've had it for less than a year), and it costs you $99 to send your product to Apple to have a new battery installed! I'm told you can change the battery for cheaper yourself, but it nullifies the warranty (and on such an expensive electronic, that is not too prudent). The program Apple supplies to be able to add music to your iPod (iTunes) is also full of poorly-chosen options. It comes with an auto-sync option, which at first sounds appealing, but later proves to be more trouble than it's worth. Having attempted to clear my library in the program, iTunes proceeded to delete all my music & recordings from my computer (many of which I cannot replace). If I were to try to sync my iPod to my computer at this point, the auto-sync feature would replace all my playlists with empty ones. After calling Apple, I found out that there is a 10-15 SECOND window in which I MAY be able to turn-off the auto-sync prior to losing all my iPod files. If, however, I am too slow, or my computer doesn't respond fast enough, I lose everything on the iPod as well.
After all that hassle, the good points of the iPod are it's portability (small size) and it's capacity to hold a lot of music/recordings. I hear there are also some calendar and address book features avaliable to Mac users, but not to PC users.
Rating: 
Summary: Great interface, good sound
Review: Have had my 30 GB iPod since November 2003, and am still loving it. Very few complaints - the sound quality is excellent, the user interface is easy to use, and the syncing with iTunes works flawlessly. Probably the best feature of the iPod is the easy to use/navigate user interface - it's a snap to find the song you want quickly or build a playlist on the fly. It's also nice how the statistics from your iPod use such as number of times each song is played, date last played, and ratings (0 to 5 stars) carry over to iTunes and vice versa. The smart playlists from iTunes also work, so, for example, I have a playlist on my iPod of all songs rated between 3 and 5 stars which haven't been played in the last month. Pretty nifty. Highly recommended - a little pricey, but you won't regret it - I get way more use out of my iPod than I did from my first MP3 player - a flash memory based one with a mediocre interface and small storage capacity. PS: The iTunes Music Store is cool!
Rating:
Summary: iPod, audio books, and driving
Review: Why would I want to review this product, after hundreds of reviews have been written before mine? First and foremost, as a hommage to Apple Computer, Inc. they did it once again! This is a visionary, groundbreaking product that revitalized a sluggish and very boring (and expensive) MP3 player market, in which products in the similar price range (around $399) had usually 128 MB, maximum 256 MB of usable disk space. Which means, one could store 2-3 albums provided their MP3 files were of medium quality or lower. So Apple designers thought: 'Uhm, why not put a small battery-driven hard drive into a housing of white plastic, with a simple to use linear scroll software. And why not allow the user to synchronise in a fun way while charging the long-lasting (around 7 hours) rechargeable battery? A simple idea that brought an incredible breakthrough, an innovation that untied the music fan's hands. Now we can finally bring our music (oh well, at least a big chunk of it!) along whereever we go.
Instead of hurting the grumpy, old-fashioned and dying-off music industry, that had already suffered badly from swapping and file-sharing networks such as Napster and the likes, Apple provided a fresh breath, a successful business opportunity: it allowed a perfectly legal, highly lucrative, but at the same time, (finally) user-friendly, inexpensive, fast & rather pleasant way to purchase new music online, in the cosy comfort of one's home.
The real soul and life of the iPod is in fact the iTunes software (seamlessly integrated with Apple Music Store), not just the pod by itself. 30 seconds of stunningly hi-fi previews are available for each song and play immediately (with a decent connection) unlike the mediocre, monophonic, noisy, crashing, slow Real Player previews available from other online stores (sorry Amazon.com). Purchasing music from the Apple Store is really like a breeze!
I read some other critiques here. I'd like to kindly ask those people who tried to discredit the product with false statements regarding its performance and compattibility with the Mac or PC: please have the dignity and strength to respect the leader in MP3 player architecture & technology. Competition is a healthy business reality so please learn from Apple's overwhelming success. I have a very strong intuitive feeling that some of you may as well be employed with some of those troubled competitors that feel endangered- you still offer products at almost the same cost that still feature the usual 256 MB of memory... batteries not included. No wonder you feel so angry and desperate.
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