What's all this fascination with these things?

Admittedly it is a "sexy" design but by all accounts not the best feature wise and certainly not value for money.

I just got me a beauty mp3 player for a 1/3 the price(£69)

- includes fm radio (20 presets)
- built in 128Mb but also has a slot that accepts MMC/Sd card
-runs off one AA battery
- dinky size
- brilliant sound with plenty of volume

Take a look at the I-Fire 128MB mp3 player at:

http://www.firebox.com

Go on!! Be different..don't fall for the hype.

Howard

128MB???????? I'M looking at a 40GB iPod! (I want to keep my entire classical music library in my pocket at ALL times...)

Thank you Jordini, you took the words right out of my mouth. 128MB... now that is funny! Heck, my iPod is only 10 gig and I'm still not even close to filling it up yet.

Iwasn't really extolling the virtues/non virtues of 128 MB..of course the i-pod has a much bigger memory.
If you you are obsessed with having an entire CD collection in your pocket (no idea why you would want this)then obviously Hard Drive machines are the way to go. Of course there are plenty of these types better value for money than the i-pod. You still have moving parts so if you want to go mountain biking /jogging etc you have the chance of the thing skipping or getting damaged. The many solid state mp3 players don't suffer from this.Plus many have an inbuilt radio
which is another useful feature.
Anyway..10 or so albums on board at one time should be enough for most people..how long does it take to drag drop files from your pc to change what's on board any way. I've seen a lot of poor reviews.So guys..lets not argue over big boys toys.Sony are about to launch one that will give the i-pod a run for its money.

Howard

Hmmm...,

First you post a challenge to people as to what the advantages of the iPod are, and say "don't fall for the hype." Then when people take up your challenge and point out the advantages, you "let's not argue over the big boys toys." You can't have it both ways Howard.

The fact is, you pay for memory. It's not just about songs either. The iPod is used by a lot of people to store the files that they don't wnat to leave on their desktops (the movie Runaway Jury has a perfect example of this).

Personally, I'm perfectly happy with my Samsung Yepp, which is only 256Mb, but is also an FM radio, a voice recorder, a storage device, and can convert CDs to MP3 files as well ($150), but I cetainly understand the appeal of the iPod.

Jim

I laugh at 128mb. The iPod has GIGS AND GIGS of room. Much superior to the 128mb.

I don't own an iPod but when my dad was searching all the reviews looking for an mp3 player, he wound up going with this after I talked him into it a bit. I never liked macs as a kid and young adult, but I've been using a mac for a year now for video editing and whatnot, and I have to say that within the past couple of years mac has taken leaps and bounds with its hardware and software. the ipod is not only small and hold tons of stuff, but the iTunes program that it uses is incredible and one of the best features of the whole "ipod experience". My dad is using it on a PC with no problems. You can get itunes as a free download from Apple.

I'm not talking about the music store, which is neat, but the program itself for cataloging your CDs. It accesses a great database that named some stuff we were really suprised about. You can also easily use the prgroam to convert your music into various file formats (AAC, MP3, WAV) at various sampling rates. The iPod itself can also be used as an external hard drive, not just a music player. You can stick photos, text, word documents, whatever, on here and take them with you. Much more convenient than carrying a lot of CDs or floppies.

Overall, I thought the iPod would be cool, but it surpassed my expectations. I'm sure many of the smaller players are fine. If all you want is something that'll hold an hour while you work out at the gym, get one, its cheaper and all you need. But for trips, data, amount of space, etc, the iPod is great and there's a reason that it's the best-selling mp3 player in history.

Kevin

In my case, there are a number of advantages for the iPod:

1) It integrates flawlessly with my Mac and iTunes.
2) The memory is more than I will ever need for my music collection.
3) It was free.

BTW, guess who is one of the most surprising recent Mac converts? Jeff Reifman! His resume includes being head project manager at Microsoft and co-founder of MSBNC. (Click here: Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow)

Sure you could get a worthless 6 dollar piece of folded metal to hold a deck of cards. It's cheap...it looks like a real card clip....it almost acts like a real card clip, OR you could spend the extra dollars and get a Porper clip which will outlast even the most disgusting roaches after the Nuclear Holocaust in 2021....I've said to much already.

If you're in a situation where you can update your 128M player every day then it's a fine choice. If you find yourself on the road for long periods of time then it's the way to go.

I personally own a mini Ipod and love it. 15G seemed like a little too much storage for me to keep straight at any given time, but the 4G size is just perfect.

I have had no problems and found it to be quite intuitive. I'm not a huge fan of Itunes, but there are ways to use other jukeboxes with it.

I just sold a 15GB pod.

I found it to be poorly designed mechanically and the opsystem and software are badly designed. If you just want to play MP3s fine. If you want a tech marvel then this is not for you.

If I was in on the design I would have used a color display, removable battery, SD card compatable.
I would have incoporated bluetooth and few other devices into it. even down to GPS, mobile phone, games console, digital camera and Fm radio.

The I-pod has a 25 minute skip protection. 25 minutes!!! That means that the drive could stop and it would still play for almost another half an hour. I both moutain bike and jog with my Ipod and it has never skipped once. Apple really means quality, this thing is built to last.

P.S. I have a 15 gig and I love it. I use it just about every day, I take it on car/plane trips. I have music, audiobooks, and almost every single magic radio show on it.

I have my own personal Ipod, its about 20,000 GB or more.
I can think music and so mentally play a track back in my mind. I don't include lyrics but can recall full orchestrations. I am getting to know Brahms hungarian dances at the moment. I don't get skip or low power and I have good software. I don't need headphones or a remote control. I am happy with my biological mp3 player.

Well said Partizan I agree,
Of course if you are obsessed with Memory Size and belong to the " Nah nah na na nah mine's bigger than yours." brigade , then 20G, 30G 40G ..it may be a good buy , but 3 hours to charge a battery that last 8 hours? and has to be sent back for a new one to be fitted when it finally runs out. Nah I'll stick with my 1xAA rechargeable that runs for 12 hours.

Howard

You have identified the Achille's heel of the iPod.

I'm a huge Mac fan; I bought the very first one when they came out in 1984 (paid extra to have the 512K memory). But Apple consistently innovates products then sets itself up to be outdone by the competition.

Charging $100 to replace a battery after it goes bad in a year and a half (third parties will do it for less) is asking too much. Consumers aren't going to put up with that when competition gets tougher.

I don't really care about price (it's a tax write-off for me), but I have a 256MB mp3 player because its tiny and fits on my keychain. I use it to store files for work, so I need something that's always handy. I also like the fact it runs on a single AAA battery. True, it only holds four hours, but it takes less than a minute to change the music out.

There's no question that, right now, the iPod is the coolest player out there. For some people, however, other options are better.

Another problem that is going to catch up with Apple is restricting files from its iTunes store, but that's a whole other discussion.