Rating: 
Summary: Alright people..... Hands Down the best!!!
Review: The IPOD is the greatest MP3 player available. The old one was good (relativley small, lotsa space). The new one however is great. 15gb hardrive that small and light?!?! How amazing. Plus the sound quality is excellent. There are 2 major complains with this MP3 player. I feel the need to address them. The first one is that its expensive. COME ON FOLKS!!! You get what you pay for. The only other hard drive MP3 player that has these features is the nomad 2 and 3. However they are huge and weigh a lot. This is mean for portability. It still amazes me. The next closet thing too it is the zen, which is 100 dollars less, but does not have nearly as many features and is bigger. The second issue many peopel complain about is the fact that it is hard to use with windows. I have a windows computer as well as a Mac. I can use both. When you plug it into windows, it comes up as a harddrive. All you have to do is transfer the files. Same thing wiht Mac. Plus, it is an APPLE product. Made for APPLES. I guarantee you that if you look at half the other MP3 players out there, they have NO compatability with macs. This one does, and even goes a step further with providing compatability with PC. Thats the reason why its more friendly with macs as opposed to PC's. Sound qualilty is excellent through the ear buds. I thought that would be the first thing I would need to upgrade, but that isnt so. The only complaint I have with the product is that I wish it came with a removable battery. Tho it states there is no memory, within a couple of years, it WILL deplete. This makes me conscious. I recommend buying the apple care warranty wiht it, makes it much better. Will replace unit when the battery goes down. Other than that, its a great unit at an OK price. Nothing Less.
Rating: 
Summary: Paperweights, anyone?
Review: After researching both the new iPods and the Zen, I'm struck by the fact that neither have replaceable Li-ion batteries. They are indeed rechargeable, but since Li-ion technology dictates that the battery can survive only 350-400 discharge/recharge cycles (afterwhich it becomes totally unchargeable), both the iPod and Zen are destined to be paperweights in 18 to 24 months, granted that lifetime depends on use. Li-ion batteries begin to lose charge capacity after 200 charge cycles, meaning that neither player will be able to hold a full charge once that point is passed--something sure to limit playtime. Neither Apple nor Creative tech support were willing to ensure that their companies would be willing to replace the Li-ion battery, even if it were possible (the iPod's battery is not replaceable, period.).
Rating:
Summary: Oh My God!
Review: Well after thinking about spending $$ for this I decided to go for it! When I got it out of its well packaged box I was very happy as to how it looked and felt in my eager hands. Once I installed the software in my !Mac the !Pod was downloaded in I would say less than a second a song, very very fast and impressive downlaod from my Mac to the Pod. So far I have 188 songs and it didn't even scratch the surface of the 15 GB I have.
The Pod's backlights were a big surprise and they look very attractive esp. when docked. The sound with the bud headphones actually sound awesome. This is the coolest toy I have bought besides the !mac. Do yourself a favor and if you can, get this it is so damn cool! Best Mp3 player ever!!
Rating: 
Summary: A Windows Nightmare
Review: Awkward and unreliable software to record and store CDs before loading iPod. Lots of "iPod is full" messages while showing over 13GB available on the iPod disk. I'm returning mine because something that should and could be fun has turned into a royal pain in the a**. The iPod itself is fantastic and I'll buy another when Apple provides software that works.
Rating:
Summary: Excellence personified!
Review: As a near-decade & 1/2 long windows user, I was 'hesitant' to consider the purchase of an iPod. Luckily, I received one for father's day and didn't have to 'make' the decision.As it is, the product-- everything about it-- defines excellence: the box and initial packaging, the documentation, the accompanying (windows) software, the iPod w/ headphones & docking station. My old compaq had a firewire port, so I connected in the docking port directly to it, plugged in the iPod and went to town recharging the batteries. With that in place, I plugged in the Apple supplied CD and found my *only* disappointment. Namely, while I have (already) purchased a MusicMatch license (with recurring updates), the iPod (currently) only auto-synchs with the supplied 7.5 release (a capable MusicMatch release, but not quite as refined as the 8.x release currently out there). Conundrum? No. I uninstalled the existing 8.x MusicMatch, installed the 7.5 release and found three things:
(a) The existing Windows 'bug' with regards to uninstallation was still present (eg programs never 'really' remove themselves once installed)
(b) The bug was *wonderful* in this case because all my playlists, recording settings, and directories were all present.
(c) iPod's software (from the System Tray service/icon to the 7.5 software) worked *exactly* as advertised. Not bad. In fact, excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Sleek, Sexy and Innovative - as we expect from Apple
Review: I am going to switch and buy a 12" powerbook in september, before I go to university. I couldn't wait until then to get an ipod mostly due to the fact that my older MP3 player (64mb creative muvo) broke-down. I fell in love with the 15 gb ipod when I first saw it, In fact I have experienced love for the first time. It looks a lot smaller than I thought, and I know you will also think so if you haven't seen one in the flesh before. It is a fantasic bit of kit, even though it has a hefty price tag, I think it is worth the money. Why I hear you ask? 1) It is a lot smaller and lighter than any other MP3 player with that storage capacity on the market 2)The sound quality is beyond belief, for classical music and show music you really hear this. If you are into drum and bass, the headphones that come with the ipod may struggle, I tried other headphones and the sound was better. 3)So much love and compassion was used to design this ipod, and the manufaturing of the product is of the highest quality. the build quality is fantastic, believe me you will not find anything that is so beautiful, I know because I work in an electrical store and we have about 20 mp3 players for sale and I have played with them all, nothing compares! 4)The solid wheel and the menu structure are very easy and fast to use, lets put it this way, I turned the ipod on and used it without looking at the instructions, It also has three games on which will keep you amused on long journeys. Cons
1) As I said I don't think much of the headphones, maybe mine are faulty, and I may get on to apple about that. (thats only if you have the volume up very high, which is bad for you anyway! LOL) In conclusion, even though may hard-drived based mp3 players are on the market, the reason why the ipod is the market leader has to be due to the size and ease of use, in fact it is slightly larger than a pack of cigs. I give this product 4.5, it lost 0.5 marks due to the headphone problem I have experinced, however reading forums I have not seen this issue raised.
Rating:
Summary: So far, So Good on the PC
Review: I was reluctant to take the dive on a cross-platform product, especially after reading some of the other reviews on problems with the PC hookups. However, I really wanted a player to take running that had the capacity for both songs and Audible books (at high quality). I brought it home yesterday and hooked it up to my PC in about 1 hour and it's working fine with both the MusicMatch and Audible. There were some little hiccups that I cured by reformatting the iPod (2x-takes about 2 minutes) until everything was setup properly. I got the idea from the other reviews! The fact that the PC sees it as a separate drive doesn't have any impact on how the different software works with it. I loaded a 120MB book in less than 30 seconds. Now I have music and stories to add to my runs.One thing that might have helped is that I'm running this on a fairly new computer (3 months old) with FireWire and Windows XP. I held back the 5th Star for 2 reasons. First, is that I'm waiting to see how well it holds up after taking it on some long runs. Second, I would have liked 1 place to go to add both books and music - maybe that will be fixed with iTunes for the PC.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, amazing and spectacular. Product of the Decade!
Review: Pros: Best-of-breed design and interface; excellent playlist features; clean, configurable sound; smooth syncing with both Windows PCs and Macs; organizes contacts; includes games; functions as an external drive. Cons: No FM or voice recording; line-in recording included but not enabled; no USB kit until June; battery life compromised somewhat by small size; no AAC ripping or purchasing by Windows users. The minute I openned my iPOD 15 GIG, I was so impressed with the packaging that I could not wait until I started using this marvelous product. I was up and running in about 5 minutes after a full battery charge. I brought it to work and the all of my co-workers are racing out to get one. The sound quality is great and the features are wonderful. Bite the bullet and purchase this very well designed electronic marvel. I would need several pages of text to continue to explain how great this product is. Also, I would like to mention that the battery life is horrible and there was no FM and voice recording. But desptie that, I suggest that you hurry up, try it for yourself, and you won't look back.
Rating:
Summary: Myths about iPod
Review: I purchased the 15GB iPod this week (June 9, 2003) to run with my Win2000 machine. I was almost convinced by messages on this board that the iPod wouldn't work very well with Windows. That could not be any farther from the truth. 1. I opened my iPod at 11AM. The install of iPod and download of all my music was complete by 1PM. No kidding. Granted I don't have Gigs of music but I was pretty impressed that iPod plugged into the firewire port and began working without errors. The transfer speed was outstanding (5Mg is less than 10 seconds). 2. Musicmatch worked seamlessly with Win and iPod. I drug my music library to the portable device window and the download began. No problems what so ever. 3. The firewire port DOES allow the iPod to charge when it's plugged into to my PC. Don't mess around with the USB connection! Someone claimed you had to buy some upgraded Firewire card but I purchased a cheap PCI firewire card and its works great. 4. Apple installs a utility to dock and undock the iPod from the PC. Works like a charm every time. Maybe I'm the lucky one here but I can't say enough good things about the iPod. My recommendation is to purchase this tool and then trade in your PC for an iMac, that's my next big purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: Windows perspective
Review: Like my ex-wife, the iPod for Windows is beautiful and doesn't work. Needless to say, this is a recipe for extreme frustration, and I can only warn Windows users to resist the siren song at least until Apple addresses several problems. Chief among them is the iPod's inability to remember it's been charged. Consequently, it has a functional battery life of as little as 10 minutes, after which it must be recharged for several hours (assuming it doesn't become entirely unresponsive for 24 hours or more). This problem, in varying degrees, has afflicted each of the half-dozen Windows-iPod victims I know. Conclusion: don't get an iPod unless you have a Mac.
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