Rating: 
Summary: PC Users Beware
Review: I am an experienced technology user (20 years in the industry) and had one of the worst experiences ever with this product. The iPod itself is nice, but is not ready for primetime with the PC. If you have a Mac, go forth and prosper, but if you have a PC beware that the software is at best pre-alpha quality and that the device has a design flaw for PC users (that it gets power only through certain 6-pin firewire ports, which most PCs don't have).Anway, why would you really want to buy an iPod when you can get a 60Gb Nomad Zen for $$$$ less than a 30Gb iPod? (Unless you just have to have product packaging that looks like a wedding invitation.)
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent 'component' for a home music system - and portable
Review: Searching for a solution to an unmanageable amount of CD's, with the majority sitting in my Case Logic binders untouched for years, I embarked on a mission to find the digital solution. After snooping around the internet and asking friends, I landed on the 30-Gig iPod. I have been astounded by its performance and pleased with my re-introduction to many of the CD's that I have long forgotten. I use the musicmatch software, which has some minor glitches, but nothing that is a deal breaker. I download from my XP laptop which I have equipped with a removeable firewire card (this is a must...). Thus far, I have moved nearly 3,000 songs into the iPod, and used about 9.6 gigs. And that is the bulk of my 400+ CD collection. Which brings me to the point that 30G is probably a little too much. 20 will do it for anyone that I can imagine. Another point - the cradle, equipped with a monster cable audio-in adapter, makes the iPod a perfect component for a system. And it will charge in the cradle so there are no battery life issues. I have it hooked into a Cambridge mini system and a Bose home system, and it sounds flawless on both. Overall, I highly recommend this product to anyone that is seeking the digital solution to music management. I will admit that I am not that concerned with features (such as the playlists) as I view the iPod as an alternative to having tons of CDs all over the place. It is much easier to scroll through and then press play. I really enjoy the ability to put my iPod in the cradle, press play, and have it randomly pull a song at a time from my entire music collection. With a larger CD collection, it is like having your own custom radio station. I challenge anyone to show me a more elegant, technologically developed digital storage solution for music. This product is terrific. Additionally, I do not use it as a portable player for the gym et al, as that is reserved for smaller, lighter, flash based mp3 players, like the iRiver, for instance, which is outstanding. But for the car, plane trips, and the like - it is again, top notch. The iPod is the single best consumer electronics item that have ever purchased, and I recommend it for all who are searching for a digital solution for their music. As a note, I was so compelled by this product that I wrote this, my first ever review, to spread the word.
Rating: 
Summary: Holding out for .OGG support
Review: I've tried out a friend's iPod, and it's terrific--but I refuse to buy one until Apple provides support for the Ogg Vorbis compression format. .OGGs sound better than MP3s at the same bitrate, but I've not even heard rumors of future support for this improved format. I rip my CDs exclusively to .OGG, so an iPod is useless to me for now. Nevertheless, it gets four stars based on the time I've spent with one...it'll get five with .OGG support. Please, Steve!
Rating: 
Summary: Machine Konked out and Apple says TOO BAD
Review: I bought the IPOD in good faith. I didn't realize, and still don't understand why there is only a 10 day return policy. I would not have bought it if I had known that. It died during a sync. Have no idea why, but it did. I sent it back for repairs, and they claim nothing is wrong with it. But, they can't get it to move off of the FOLDER warning menu. So, I can't use it. Tech support wants me to send it back for the second time. No refunds. No exchanges.
Rating:
Summary: musicmatch deletes my files!!!!
Review: I would like to notice the persons who want to purchase this product. For edit and import your music library into the ipod from your PC, you have to use musicmatch. However, it deletes my mp3 songs which I've kept for several years. I am 100% sure that I did not do something wrong. However, after I edited the name and artist, the song disappreared mysteriously!!! I am a computer user for more than 15 years. It is not an accident, but it completely delete my mp3 file without any warning! I can not even find it in trash can. I searched the who hard drive, but it just disappeared. HA... I am just a regular user and telling the problem I got. However, if it is my fault (how it can be?! it delete the file through an option that is not supposed to delete anything. Also, it deletes files without any warning), I will remove this comment. By the way, IPOD is NOT as cool as it looks like. It is really old style. I explored all the options in 5 minites or less, nothing exciting. Three old style games which rewind my memory back to 20 years ago...
Rating:
Summary: Great hardware, horrible software
Review: I bought my ipod as a substitute for a stereo. Just hook it up to some good applified speakers and wham! you have yourself one great jukebox. Not to mention the space you'll save. It's also very durable. Unfortunately the software takes time to work.
I'd prefer a drag and drop format but the way it is actually set up you have to play around with some stubborn software and hope it doesn't crash your system.
If your system is able to handle this kind of abuse and you learn the tricks of the trade you'll feel happy that you have this great new product.
I also haven't been able to make my ipod comatible with media player which is very unfortunate since windowsmedia player is very easy to use and a very good quality program.
A 5 star product but I had to remove the one star simply because of the time consuming software.
Rating:
Summary: Best MP3 player for the money
Review: This mp3 player is the best I have run across. Ive put around 600 songs on it and have only used 4gb or so..meaning I have 26 left. It will take years to fill up.
The software for this is actually very good if you know how to use or read the directions. The only reason album order wont be followed is if you dont properly tag the tracks, and tagging tracks takes about 3 seconds. I will admit that the inability to make more than one playlist on the Ipod without computer help is rather annoying and one of only two flaws I've run into.
The second of its flaws is the backlight. The backlight only stays on for around 10 second, making it rather annoying to search through songs in the dark.
If you have the money to buy it, do so. This should last for many years.
Rating:
Summary: Yeah baby Yeah!
Review: Yeah baby Yeah! While this 30 gig IPOD has a huge song capacity of about 750 CDs, its also a 30 gig portable drive housed in a device the size of a deck of cards. So in addition to being an expertly designed mp3 player, its a great backup drive. I use it to backup photos and my email files which are stored in multiple PCs. If you are using on a few PCs, installation had one hurdle but eventually it worked out just fine. Since I use the Ipod on a few PCs, I installed the software there. When installing on a 2nd PC, best not to plug in the Ipod because by defauly the software wipes out all your data. I dont have a USB2 port, but the USB 1 isnt really that slow anyway.
Rating:
Summary: I hate to say that an Apple was worth the price but....
Review: Ok, so I was a bit slow come around to the most expensive toy I've owned for some time. Silly me. As a PC owner, I stood by the sidelines and watched the world bash Apple for the iPod being non PC and then not working well when it was finally allowed to touch the world of Mr. Gates! Well, all I can say is that MusicMatch installed to my IBM Thinkpad with Win2kPro along with a cheap-[ ] PCMCIA Firewire from Fry's and within about 10 minutes time I was in the process of loading 20mb of music on my 30mb iPod!!! My installation was painless!
MusicMatch is not bad music management software. It works for me probably because I READ the manual and the Review boards to learn about its quirks. (I am waiting to try ephpod and MusicX softwares to see if they are any faster)
Let's just say that inspite of not being perfect, the iPod is the most comfortable way to carry an incredible amount of music nearly anyplace! It was my link to sanity while traveling on English trains for the better part of a month!
The battery life is close enough to 8 hours to be ok and there are a couple of battery pack options should you need to fly for more than 8 hours. The worldwide poweradapter is so small that I just keep that handy along with the interchangeable plugs and a quick power-up is only an hour away. Earbuds and other accessories are better than average. Better earbuds and earphones only make the iPod sound better. What would make this better... uhhh a better display and the ability to support USB 2.0 out of the box. Speaking of which... the process of opening the box of the iPod is so well engineered and thought out that it is an experience that rivals Christmas morning. I am not ready to give up my Thinkpad but this little gem makes me think that Apple has plenty of life left to be a player in the digital arts for time to come! Spend the extra money... you will only regret settling for something that is not as good as the iPod.
Rating:
Summary: A great little machine, but hard to get it working.
Review: I actually started w/the Archos Jukebox but while going to the gym to workout, it would just freeze up and stop playing, so I decided to cough up an extra 200 bucks and get the 30 gig Ipod. I've been a windows junkie and am not too familiar w/apple products. I love my new Ipod but it was a little bit of a hassle to get it working even for a computer junkie like myself. First the 8-hour battery life doesnt seem to last that long. I think apple could have picked something better than MusicMatch for their software but who am I to say. Buyer beware, if you buy this product and have a PC, be advised you either have to have a firewire card installed or you will have to buy an extra cable that "only" works with a usb2 connection, however it seemed to work on my regular usb port. That ticked me off because I wasnt able to play with my toy the day I bought it. One problem I encountered just recently, I actually reformatted one of my computers and now it has win98 it on it. The Ipod I guess is not compatible with win98. I heard there might be a driver,patch or program out there to get past that. I had it working w/win2k before so I didnt encounted this. let me know if you find something out there. Other than that, I love my Ipod. The touch pad may be a little to sensitive for me, the earbud headphones sound better than I expected. (usually you get some crappy earphones when you spend a lot of money on a walkman,cd player, etc). You're just gonna have to play with it to get the feeling of what it can. There's definately room for improvement. I dont think the exec's up in the apple offices in Silicon Valley cared too much about the windows user. Apple didnt spend too much of their time to make it user friendly for PC people. If you have the 300-500 beans to spend on something smaller than a cell phone, you're a brave person but be assured that once you getting it working for you, you're gonna ask yourself, "damn, how did I ever go without one of these before?!?"
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