Rating: 
Summary: First Apple product I bought: 40g iPod
Review: I been using Apple's product, since Apple II and thought they are marketed for the over-spenders. This is a great product but not as revolutionary like some make it sound to be. The hard drive is the biggest out there. I have a 20 gigs Nomad Zen and I will compare it to my new 40gigs IPod. The iPod is a little smaller and better looking. I paid $250 for Zen, about a year ago, and got an iPod for a whooping $500, my bank account is now hurting. The iPod's firewire transfer is a lot better and faster. I put about the same amount of gigs on each and it took half the time with the iPod. iTune for Window XP works great. Both sound qualities are about the same, which is super. Apple menu is easier to navigate. The dock is nice, but unnecessary. Since, it has no added feature then an audio output which is what the iPod line-out is for. I simply like how it feels in my hand better. The touch sensitive buttons is very cool and innovated. Can be use as a external hard drive, but there are limitation on some features.The Cons:
The iPod's slip on case is almost nonfunctional. There is no opening to turn the wheel or see what on display since the remote has no digital screen to see anything. The remote feels awkward like the old Apple's G3 circular mouse. The combination of remote and earphone is way to long. No ON/OFF switch, this can drain the battery if you unexpectedly bump a button. The features of an FM tuner and recorder are expensive separate add-on so it make the iPod larger Some of the other MP3 Hard drive players have these features already included. Battery is not as long as I expect from a 40gigs $500 MP3 player Reason to buy:
Why I bought the iPod is of the simple and best scroll wheel out there. Finding thousands of songs on the scroll wheel is a breeze. The menu is very simple and the integration of the itune is fabulous. I love almost everything about this IPod except for the price and battery life. The design aspect ratio to price favors Apple, not the consumer. If people feel better, because they bought the word Apple and are willing to paid more, that is fine to. I am not yet sold to the Apple's Nation with this product.
Rating: 
Summary: IPOD is the best
Review: I bought my IPOD just yesterday and i am just going crazy seeing it again and again.Musicmatch Jukebox is very easy to use.I read many other reviews where people had problems in using Musicmatch jukebox.I didnt have any problem in understanding that.I am able to transfer all my Mp3 songs from my hard disk to my IPOD without any problem.It sounds gr8 and the space is huge-40 GB.Wowww.Really would recommend this to everybody when compared to NOMAD or RIO or Samsung.
Rating:
Summary: Great small MP3 Player With an Artistic Design
Review: I bought this product one month back for $470 from amazon with FREE shipping and NO tax. Don't buy from stores they will charge you SALES TAX which sucks. Ofcourse they can't beat amazon.com price. I played with it for considerable time and it looks like it is worth of price (not exactly--these guys may come down once they get competition). No MP3 player can beat its design. It is so sleek, you can't imagine. You won't see a button outside. Everything is smooth. I love it.
Dell has released its DJ (Dell Juke box). I think they have only 15 and 20GB (I think $299 after $50 mail in rebate) ones so far. Ofcourse you can expect many more features like RECORDING, FM RADIO (not sure check out) and few more feautres which you don't find in ipod. But you know that is bulky. I have dell POCKET PC which is bulky. DJ is also looks like their pocket PC.
I suggest you to use ITUNES instead of MUSIC MATCH (this sucks--not really---but it is). Music match takes lot of time to load and it is big. ITUNES REALLY cute and does our job fine and infact it has other feautres like adding contacts etc. which I don't fine with music match. You can find many discussion boards on apple website for ipod. I took out 1 star for the following problem (but i can adjust to it) When you syncronize the songs from your hard disk or cd the power from ipod drains out very quickly. so you can't SYNC. more than 3 or 4 cd's (650 MB) at a time. you have to charge again. That is the only complaint.
By the by why did I chose IPOD over DELL DJ?--Dell released its DJ the night I was purchasing IPOD but I still preferred this b'coz ---- I want only songs no other stuff like recording, mp3, etc.--- I have pocket pc for that. It is upto you to decide which one you want. I want to own one apple product and ipod fits the bill. If you ever buy ipod first check amazon.com---why b'coz NO SHIPPPING (IF U BUY BEFORE DEC 30) AND NO TAX.
have fun
Rating:
Summary: Best there is.
Review: I can't say enough good things about my iPod. I use my 40gb iPod to store my music collection and as a external HD for my powerbook. This slick setup is more than functional. If you dont want to use the extra space as an external HD you can probably save the money and and get a smaller iPod. Functionally, the iPod is easy to use right out of the box. You wont find anything easier. Add ons finish the case for buying an iPod: Numerous third party products make this the player you have to have. Check out the custom FM players available for an iPod --no dongles anymore! consider the iTunes Music store, 99 cent songs and its legal. Numerous options for cases, boom boxes, home audio, remote controllers, the list goes on. One last thing about using the extra space for a HD. It is easy to setup this extra space as a backup drive to copy critical information and documents.
Rating:
Summary: I love my 40GB Ipod
Review: I decided to go with the most memory I could. Currently I have 792 songs and several books and have only used 3GB of memory. The sound is terrific. I also liked the fact that it came with the remote, dock and case. Although I think I probably will buy a new case since you can't see the face of the Ipod on the one that came with it and you are stuck with cords hanging all over the place. But I think it was well worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Excessive Costs of Repair
Review: I dropped my new 40 GB iPod in the sink for the briefest of moments. Believe me, it is not all that difficult to do. Water rushed into the docking port and the unit is toast. Naturally, water damage is not covered by the warranty.
But now the bad news ... it costs $249 plus $7 in shipping, or $256 to repair, compared to $399 for a new 40 GB iPod (or $299 for the 20 GB model with the same repair charge). It is the same charge whether covered by warranty or not. There is NO credit for being under warranty whatsoever. Even a battery replacement is $99 plus $7 in shipping.
Apple product support personnel were matter of fact about the charge and the problem of water. One person told me of an iPod destroyed by being splashed poolside. Another mentioned that he has raised internally the problem of water rushing into the docking port. Imagine walking around with this iPod in a steady rain.
My conclusions - the 40 GB iPod is a fragile, expensive piece of equipment with arguably a design flaw. The excessive cost of repairs undermines its attractiveness. It was my first Apple product and my last. Bad show Apple!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing regression from 2nd generation iPod.
Review: I gave it one star in a relative sense. Not that it's a piece of junk, but that it is disappointing. Also it might help to lower the averaged rating. I have a 3rd generation 30 GB iPod. I upgraded from a 2nd generation 10 GB iPod. I post review here so that people buying the largest storage iPod can see it (30 GB and 40 GB are almost the same except for the 10 storage difference). I don't like the new design, although some improvements are good. I think the 2nd generation was better. I list the pros and cons of the 3rd generation iPod below. Cons:
1. Touch sensitive buttons don't work well. They are small and hard to operate. They are less intuitive than the old design with buttons around the wheel. It's hard to find the right key without visual guidance. You cannot operate it in your pocket or in darkness without backlight, which was easy with the old iPod. Sometimes when the air and my fingers are dry, it will not respond to key press, or it responds with a long lag. The worst part is that it will be activated mistakenly all the time: taking it out of pocket, putting it in a case, try to reach for one key but touched the wrong one during the reaching out hand movements. It happens many times a day. Very troublesome and annoying. What do Apple human factor engineers do in testing the hardware interface?
2. Lack of standard firewire port on iPod. With the older iPod, I can charge and connect my iPod everywhere as long as I have a standard firewire cable handy, which is always available. Now I cannot do that without carrying the docking cable around. Portability of the iPod is greatly reduced.
3. When album titles do not fit on one line, they do not scroll when you play them. I have many albums that I have to guess what they are, and have never been able to see them on the iPod. (this problem also existed on 2nd G iPod.)
4. It doesn't have radio or recording function, while many other players have integrated these functions. Radio should be an easy and cheap integration, at least on the corded remote.
5. Very slow mounting in musicmatch. Sometimes it doesn't mount. 2nd G iPod works much smoother. The sync function is very problematic. Sync will not only copy playlist from music match, but also try to copy the song files, even when the files are already present on iPod. Pros:
1. audio out for better quality output to external speakers and amplifiers.
2. play list on the go.
3. slightly smaller dimension than 2nd G iPod.
4. larger capacity. I ran out of storage on the old one. I agreed with another review that it's hard to download gigabytes of files on to iPod from a PC with 4pin firewire port, which does not supply power to iPod. Battery drain in about 1-2 hours. I had to charge the battery many times before I could download all my music. However, I found out a way to work around it: connect the iPod to a powered firewire hub. Also connect the PC to the hub. Now the iPod is connected to the PC and is being charged. It is worth the money because now the hub also works as a second power converter. In summary, iPod is cool, but needs much improvement to win my thumbs up.
Rating:
Summary: Two iPods don't work: Playlist is empty after unplug
Review: I got my first iPod (1st generation, 5G, PC version) 3 years ago. During the 1st year, it's barely used. But right after the 1 year warranty expired, it's playlist always becomes empty after I unplug it from my PC.
Then I started running iPod for Windows 1.4 with iTune 4.6. Everything worked fine when I plug iPod and set up playlists and songs under iPod in iTune. But after unplug, iPod just jump to Language selection, browse to Playlist, it has nothing! Browse can see no songs either! I went to
"Settings->About", it reads:
Songs:0
Ca... 4294967295 GB (Can't be!)
Av... 4294967295 GB (Can't be either!)
Version 1.4
S/N (some number)
Format: Unknown (should be Windows)
I posted help message onto comp.sys.mac.system group, got reply to let me restore iPod software. I tried every iPod update, they all worked the same way. Or I should say none of them worked.
I also walked into Apple store, the technician there said he couldn't help since the warranty expired.
After months of struggles, I finally gave up. The good news is that I can still use it as hard drive. But it has absolute no ability to play any music ---- although all playlist and songs show up when I plug it in iTune.
The story doesn't end here. I thought my 1st iPod is just old, maybe it's time to get a new one. I spent $399 + Tax got an 40GB iPod last week.
Hooked up with PC and iTune, set up my playlist and MP3, unplug for the first time, the lovely playlist shows up! I'm so glad to be able to play music on iPod then.
But on the very first day, the top menu button doesn't response to cilck while playing. This is a brand new 40GB iPod and just started to work for the very first day! I can not do anything but to reset it, ok, it started to work again.
On the 3rd day, I pluged in to update my plyalist again. When unplug, surpriseingly, all playlists are empty! Songs count shows ZERO! It actually has more than 10G MP3s loaded! Do I need to reset it again?
Reset, no playlist still.
Reset again, still nothing!
Reset for the 3rd time, just behaves exactly as my old 5G iPod --- no playlist at all!!
I have nothing to do again, I'll return it and get other device. It's a really nice-looking buggy crap!!!
Rating:
Summary: IPOD is Art
Review: I got the 30 Gig iPOD for Christmas(Thanks Santa!). This is my first Apple product. I was prepared for all the problems I might encounter with windows after reading alot of these reviews. First I had to upgrade my computer as windows 98 just doesn't cut it anymore. Windows XP is great and has made my computer run better than ever now. Then I upgraded with a firewire card(IEEE1394). It was easy to install and not to pricey. Hey, I am an amatuer at installing computer parts. If I can do it, by god, anyone can. So after upgrading, I installed my IPOD software. It took a little while to make it work but as soon as I got the hang of it, I had no problem and I am now full on my way to music bliss. I can tranfer tons of songs in no time with the firewire. Musicmatch works just fine for me. I don't see what the big problem is with other folks. The IPOD's controls are so cool. I love rating my songs. It just feels so good in your hand. You have the power to listen to over 8000 songs that you want to listen to. No more skipping past unwanted junk. Play it through your home stereo and in your car. As a music lover, I am in love. Sure there are a few things that can annoy you about it but as a whole, this product has changed my life. Not too many times you can say that and mean it. Peace Through Music in 2004
Rating:
Summary: Quality control disaster
Review: I had excellent luck with two second generation 10 GB iPods. They worked flawlessly and efficiently. Not so with the 4 third generation units I've now owned. Each of the first three units had unique and fatal problems and was replaced at an Apple Store. They were all defective from the moment of first usage. The fourth is also a quirky performer; just today I found that it had not fully charged when plugged in overnight, and the buttons clicked and popped madly when touched, and the unit would not reboot until I tried for several minutes. Most irritatingly, the battery only gives me about 5 hours of continuous operation, which isn't doesn't even cover a day of airline travel. Apple claims 8 hours, but I didn't find that any of the four units lasted that long. The second generation units easily gave me 10 hours of music. It is my impression that Apple not only downsized the iPod, but also reduced the quality of the unit. It appears to be a slicker product, but the elimination of real buttons in favor of virtual ones is probably a cost saver. The substitution of a smaller batter for a larger one so that the unit is made smaller seems like a foolish tradeoff to me. In any case, it doesn't appear that I will ever have a third generation iPod that works properly, so I can't recommend buying one.
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