Customer Reviews

Apple iPod 10 GB White M8740LL/A (2nd Generation) OLD MODEL

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Reader's Recommendations: Top 4 reasons to buy an ipod
1. Ipod is a ultraportable 10 gb music player that has full compatibility with windows
2. Outstanding service and support from Apple, as well as an award winning music program in musicmatch.
3. Highest quality MP3 player on the market in both sound, visual, ease of use quality. Fast download times.
4. Worth the money: can be used for anything including running, walking, driving, on the airplane..anywhere.. definetely worth 400
Read the rest of my review for a detailed review and description of its unique features

I recently purchased the apple ipod 10gb for windows, the ipod connected to my computer which is a dell, easily with musicmatch jukebox and i have also used a program called Ephpod which works wonders in organizing your contacts, calendar and playlist functions of the ipod, in terms of sound quality, unparalled, ease of use superb, beauty great except that the case can pick up fingerprints pretty readily, but the included case and remote control are awesome and well made, problems, had one but it turned out it was my misunderstanding, apple support is much more helpful, caring and knowledgetic that their counterparts at Dell and Compaq for who i have dealt with pretty readily and often, the firewire part of the action presented me no problems because my laptop has a built in firewire port, but if you need to get a firewire card for your pc, try to get a 6-pin one that lets you charge the ipod while it is connected to your computer, like on the mac version, ... Good Luck with an Ipod its portability, size and interface make it the best mp3/cd/md player option that is available, i have used many different players and this is the best one for athletes or people on the go, running and most sports this is the best option for taking your whole music collection along. The firewire support is great because you can purchase and use a 6pin as well allowing you to charge the ipod as well as transferring music

To answer some questions that have arisen,
The most helpful program when using Ipod for Windows is NOT xplay, it frequently crashes and erases all info on IPod, Ephpod is an easy download at Ephpod.com it has all the functionality of an apple and allows you to customize your ipod with news, calendars, contacts etc.
The apple ipod for windows does support Audible Books, it has the software built into it and ephpod as well as musicmatch support audio book format. Ephpod is still the better option.
If you have any questions email me at...
I have had the ipod for about a month now and it has never failed to produce high quality audio and is extremely portable. Of the new options out there by creative, archos and rio are not as good, they sacrifice something somewhere, wheter it is portability, or skip protection which the ipod has 32 mb of protection.
Good Luck with your IPOD it is definetely worth the money

The Apple Ipod (5 GB, 10 GB, and 20 GB models) is the best MP3 player out on the market- no doubt about it. But why give only 4 stars out of 5? One reason, and its as simple as this, MONEY! The 10 GB Apple Ipod costs an amazing ... But in any case, if money is no object, then your best bet is w/ an Ipod. The Ipod offers amazing features, which some Mp3 players dont have, and fantastic quality. Basically your paying ... for the awesome quality which this little sliver box has to offer. Heres a list of the good and bad of the Apple Ipod:

Pros:
+Sound Is Amazing- Crisp, Clean
+Its a Jukebox 10 GB (only though about 9.2 gb is useable)
+extras such as the calendar, contacts, and get this a game of PONG!
+Terrific Browsing- Automatically BY Artist, Album, etc.
+Customizable Playlists!
+Good Software (Windows- MusicMatch MAC-iTunes)
And the List goes on and on
+Many Different Equalizer Presets

+Uses FireWire to transfer songs-fasT! (if you own a PC you will need to buy a firewire PCI card if your computer doesn't already have one)

Cons:
-expensive!
-very easily scratched (the second you take out the Ipod I guarantee you that you will scratch it within 2 minutes)
-cannot be dropped! fragile! (this isnt for people who need an MP3 player while doing sports and physical activites)

Beside these few minor problems, the Apple Ipod is just truly remarkable. You will not be disappointed if you buy one - its really a good investment.

Do I recommend to iPod, despite the price? The answer is a loud Yes. This product is wonderful. Holds more music then you may ever need. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. If you're the type that needs to read instructions before even attempting to figure things out, well guess what, even you can use this product. The sound quality is great; the size is petite and easy to put anywhere, whether it's your pants pocket or your shirt pocket. The carrying case may seem skimpy but it actually does a good job of protecting the iPod. The case is similar to the hard plastic cases for cell phones where you slide the iPod out to make any adjustments but the case stays strapped to your belt. The remote is great to, again intuitive in use and after only a use or two you'll have no problem hitting those buttons without looking.
When it comes to listening to all those songs on the iPod you have many search options such as search by song, album, and singer. Add all the playlists you want to make listening to what you want even easier. If I have any complaint, it is the shiny chrome surface which is perfect for fingerprints and smudges but after a day or so of use, you will get use to it and no longer notice.
By the way, you want the firewire card the iPod requires and the reason is simple - speed. USB would take 8-10 hours to transfer 10 gigabytes of music, firewire only takes an hour or less.
So you have this wonderful piece of Apple hardware but what about the Windows software - MusicMatch? Well, it stinks. That is putting it mildly. To add songs to your play list you first have to add songs to the MusicMatch library, no big deal there, but no instructions on how to do it either. So you have your songs in the library and you want to change them so after you have the iPod hooked up you click "Sync" and after thirty or so minutes you have 1000 plus songs on your iPod.
So where are the problems? Well after you fire your iPod up you notice some strange things like the same artist listed five times or the same album showing three times. Looking carefully you will notice the difference is only a character or two so Pink would be listed Pink, Pin, and Pi. So you think, aw man, my iPod is defective, but if you check out your MusicMatch library you will notice that it lists the singer the same way. So you correct those entries using the "Tag" option. But guess what, when you look at the album titles, artists, song titles and genre you notice that so many of them have errors, usually the last character missing from each field. Suddenly you don't have to fix dozen or so titles but quite literally your entire library of 1000 plus songs times four fields, using the tag option. On top of that, there is no guarantee that MusicMatch will transfer those changes to your iPod. The fix according to MusicMatch is to add a space at the end of every entry, and this works but again to have to do this to 1000+ songs for four different fields is a time-consuming proposition. Supposedly a fix will be out for this problem but considering what a basic thing it is to read a text field and duplicate that information there is simply no excuse for it.
Also, another problem is that the syncing. By syncing the iPod you would think that meant I added a new album to my collection and after hooking my iPod to the computer, just that album will be added. Nope, MusicMatch deletes your entire library from the iPod and re-adds it, in the process adding the new album. Also, before even doing this you have to tell the library to add this album. It does not automatically add it even though that album is in the same directory that the library is compiled from.
A final problem is there is a feature that allows volume leveling so that all the songs have the same volume when played. Sounds like a cool feature till you realize that for MusicMatch to make the changes to level the volume it actually alters the file on your computer then transfers it. So you can't revert back to the way it previously was and also as a bonus, all that information about album, song title, genre and artist are now gone and the only way you can change them is to use MusicMatch's tag ability because the Windows property section no longer contains those fields.
So to sum up, iPod wonderful mp3 player, quit simply the best on the market. MusicMatch, a joke of software that cannot do something as simple as read text fields properly. My recommendation? By Windows iPod, marvel at it. Take that iPod disc that comes with it and toss it back in the box. Instead, use a search engine to find Ephpod. It is a free program that makes transferring music to the iPod a pleasure. It actually reads the tags right and when it syncs, low and behold, the program only adds the new stuff without deleting everything from the iPod and adding it again like MusicMatch does. Also it supports audible, calender, and contacts easily. Basically, it is everything that MusicMatch should have been. Did I mention it is free? So get your iPod, get Ephpod, and you are ready to go and enjoy this wonderful piece of hardware.

Trust Me-MusicMatch can ruin one's iPod experience (so many glitches, I will not even try to list them). Get XPlay right away. Don't get my review wrong-I like my iPod and use it daily and probably would not buy any other model, but for how expensive it is, I think they need to change a few other things. Please use Apple's iPod feedback website so things that are wrong with the iPod get changed (go to Apple's website and hit iPod and then hit feedback). Some issues may seem picky but if you have an iPod with 1000s of songs by 1000s of artists and use it all the time, they would greatly improve the iPod experience:

1) Apple needs a separate PC website because PC support online is basically non-existent.

2) No audible.com (audible book service) support for Windows-based users. Additionally, it looks like Apple has an updated Mac iPod Updater (1.2.1 recently came out) but not a corresponding new Windows iPod Updater and the website does not tell you that the update is not compatible with Windows. PC iPod's should have the same support and features as Mac-user iPods and it seems like there could be a divergence.

3) "SOUND CHECK" is a volume stabilizing feature on the iPod but it is not compatible with MusicMatch 7.1's "Volume Leveling" and therefore, effectively not compatible with Windows-based iPods. This is a great feature and it is wrong that it is not currently being supported in Windows.

4) Cannot add "Composer" tag (used on the iPod) through MusicMatch and other music management programs.

5) iPod's Internal Software. I have suggested many of these changes to Apple:

A) Long song, artist, and album names get cut off and some songs have the same name (happens when you have 1000s of songs), which can lead to confusion. There is a screen (I believe browse...albums...all songs) where the songs are not in alphabetical order but in album order but the names of the corresponding albums are not on the screen. Apple should add length (time), album, artist name, genre and track number of a song after the song title when the song title is highlighted for a certain amount of time. I think this could be accomplished by automatic scrolling over to the information when the song is highlighted and the longer the song is highlighted the more information is revealed. This could be especially helpful for songs with the same name, which happens when you have lots of songs. Further, this could alleviate the problem with song titles being too long for the browse screen and this happens a lot with different remixes. Also, there are album titles that are too long for the screen, too (for example, "100 Masterpieces of Classical Music (Vol .1)" vs. "100 Masterpieces of Classical Music (Vol .2)" vs. "... (Vol .3)" and so on) and scrolling over to reveal the full title and artist would be excellent (and if there is more than one artist for an album, it could say "Various Artists") because right now if an album title is too long (and the same with artist name), there is no way to see the full title on the iPod even in the "Now Playing" screen (it only scrolls to reveal the full song name).

B) Add day of the week to the clock.

C) Songs that have no album title (missing tag) should be put under a "Miscellaneous" or "No Album Title" when browsing "Artists...Albums". Since these songs are not included in the album listings, they will not play if you were to play from the album screen or when shuffling by albums.

D) Apple should add scan or intro that plays the first 10 seconds or so of songs (and you should be able to do this randomly and within artists, composers, genres, albums, and playlists) until you hit a button and then it will play that song and will resume the scan after the song. This is extremely nice when you have thousands of songs on your iPod and don't want to sit there and hunt for the song.

E) Playlists. Currently, you have to download playlists (not only song order but the actual songs so if you already have the songs in the playlist on your iPod, you will have duplicate songs) from your computer. Therefore, you should be able to create playlists on the fly from the files that are already on the iPod. More importantly and at least, I would like to be able to create a queue list (even just one queue list at a time would be fine) so I can choose a song to play and then choose the next song to play and the next and so on and being able to save it as a playlist would be a great bonus.

F) Add .wma file support.

G) The iPod places the group "Lo Fidelity Allstars" in the "F" section (rather than "L") like it does for the titles that begin with "The" and the same happens with titles that start with "De"). This should not happen in English menus.

H) Add support for second artists and song comments tags.

7) FireWire Issues. As a PC user (especially laptop users and 4-pin FireWire card users), you may have to buy a new FireWire card and an AC adapter if you want to supply power to the iPod while connected to your computer because many PC FireWire cards do not supply power to the peripherals. There is not a separate power source on the iPod other than its FireWire port (which is can be connected to the FireWire card OR to the AC Adapter but not both). Downloading songs can be lengthy and battery intensive so the battery may only last for an hour or two while downloading via a non-powered FireWire card and so you will have to recharge before downloading to the iPod again.

iPod has set the standard for HD-based MP3 players.It's swank design and ease-of-use are outstanding. It's only negatives are lack of universal interface (u need a firewire card), inability to queue songs "on-the-fly", and the pricetag(!)

Oh, and there is that one overriding design flaw. IT'S BATTERY IS NON-REPLACEABLE. The battery is a special lithium-polymer battery tested to last 500 cycles (or charges). So, depending on your mileage, within 1-3 years, the battery on your iPod will be unable to hold a charge: bye-bye portable bliss, hello very expensive paperweight.

This is something you should consider before purchasing an iPod. If you go to discussion.info.apple.com and go to the iPod Usage messageboard (you need to register), you'll find alot of disgruntled customers posting their battery-related problems. Also it appears that with the latest firmware, there have been a rash of problems with iPods losing their battery charge when idle.

On the bright side, even when the battery goes kaput, you can still use the iPod with AC Adapter, and you can still use it as a portable mass storage device. It is also possible that sometime in the future, Apple may start a battery-replacement plan, though so far they have been hush-hush about the whole issue. Another option is to purchase some kind of 3rd party warranty.

I purchased both a Zen and a 10 GB iPOD a few days ago. Bottom line is that the Zen is being sent back and I am keeping the iPOD.

I bought the Zen because it was significantly lower priced for the 20 GB size. I had previously owned a Creative Nomad II and liked it. The zen only measures slightly larger than iPOD, but it is a significant difference. On the Zen, the control buttons are along both sides. It was too large hold the Zen and control it all with one hand. The Zen was too large and heavy to put in my shirt pocket. I like to sit at my desk and listen to music. I keep the player in my shirt pocket because it is easy to get to, and I don't accidentally pull it off my desk. In addition, the screen is smaller on the Zen, and it chopped off a lot of the file names. Finally, the Zen's menu system is quite a bit harder to use.

The iPOD is easy to use with one hand, the menu system is easy to use, and it sounds great. Several reviews had mentionned that the PC SW Music Match was very difficult to use and has some problems. I didn't have any of these major issues. I had a slight issue with the song tags, but it was pretty easy to fix. I currently have about 3 GB of music, so it fits nicely on the 10 GB iPOD with room to grow. I wish the iPOD played WMA files, but I will recode my music due to the iPOD's ease of use. I only gave the iPOD a 4 star because of the lack of WMA support.

After 6 months of owning an ipod, I am just as enamoured with it as I was the first day. I have over 700 songs on it and still have 6 gb free. I have digitized almost every piece of music I own. I regularly hook it up to my Harman Kardon home theatre system and the fidelity is incredible. The interface is intuitive and the touchpad is sleek. I have to give it to apple, they really do well with the details like the audio feedback (little clicking noise) from the touch pad and the equalizer settings. I would however recommend replacing the stock earbuds with some high quality headphones or else you're selling yourself short.

I have found only two problems:
1) It tends to get scratched up pretty easily (solution: try using pda screen protectors or contact paper to protect the finish.)
2) Diminishing battery life. I have been experiencing a shortening of the charge life with my ipod. According to apple it is a firmware issue and not a problem with the battery. They have released a firmware update(1.2.6) that supposedly fixes this problem. (Just updated mine so I can't attest to whether it fixes the problem or not)

Overall, If you're in the market for a high end portable digital audio player, why even waste your time with any other? Apple has produced an excellent player that outshines the competition on all fronts.

First of all, do not listen to the reviewer who suggested using Musicmatch 7.2, it will not work. In the words of Musicmatch's own website: "The most recent version of MUSICMATCH Jukebox 7.2 does not work with the iPod, as it was available before Apple released the new iPod.". Indeed, if you try installing it(as I did), you will probably screw up your installation enough that even after uninstalling 7.2 and re-installing 7.1, it will not completely work anymore.

Really, this is par for the course, as Musicmatch is a horrible piece of software, and is the sole reason why I docked 2 stars from this review. I won't do a full review of why Musicmatch is so bad, but suffice it to say that the two most common acts performed with the iPod (transferring music and manipulating playlists) are made dramatically *more* difficult with Musicmatch than they could be with practically any other method.

The iPod hardware, on the other hand, is a dream. The design is just as sleek as it looks, the sound quality is very nice, and it really feels like a quality piece of electronics. The headphone cord is nice and long, which makes it nice for sticking in a backpack while listening to it, and while I thought that the old movable wheel on the front had a better feel, I think that the new static wheel feels a lot sturdier. I like the fact that it is smaller/lighter than every other hard-drive based MP3 player out there.

The software ON the iPod is decent, it works well enough for choosing and playing songs. It isn't perfect, but not bad enough to really complain about, and it gets the job done.

Overall, I would have given the iPod 5 stars, except for the awful software (which is important with a product like this), so I can only give it 3 stars. If you're thinking about getting an iPod, I would suggest either waiting until they come out with better software, or perhaps looking into getting another piece of software to work with your iPod. I have heard that XPlay is nice, but I haven't tried it personally.

First, I have been into portable music machines since the first Sony Walkman. Mostly, I use these for exercise activities with preference on running. As the tape players got smaller, enjoyment improved. CD players added quality and selection speed, but all that I tried were prone to skip after only a few minutes (including those that claimed to have the gimmicky g-force). The mini-disc players added great improvement, but I thought the MP3 players would be better with faster download.

I agree with most of the reviews about the limitations about the IPOD use of MusicMatch because you're never sure if its downloading or what its downloading. But my major flaw is the reliability of the IPOD for brisk exercise activity: walking, jogging or running. I have only used my IPOD on 5 occaisions for these purposes since I opened it 3 weeks ago. But on almost every occaision the IPOD freezes up. Just like a computer does. This is extremely frustrating when you are into your exercise routine and you have to stop to reset. Another problem relates to the booklet. It is extremely limited (almost useless) in explaining operating procedures and downloading.

As far as the music quality and sound, they are tremendous - the best I've heard. The amount of music it can store is also a plus. But if you plan on using it during exercise, the freezing up thing makes me recommend you look at other devices before you consider the IPOD.

The reason why Apple decided to use firewire instead of usb is simply because usb is not fast enough to load 5g,10g or 20g of songs to ipod ( even usb 2.0 is nothing compared to firewire).
Firewire card is not that costly. Althought it costs you extra money, but it is worth it. About the skipping music problem with ipod, I found these documents from apple.com .
These documents are from faq of ipod.
Question 10: Can I use iPod while running, or doing other activities? Will my music skip?

Answer: iPod was designed for people with an active lifestyle. It is compact and lightweight enough to take with you wherever you go. It was designed to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand or to be slipped into a pocket or purse for easy transport. iPod offers up to 20 minutes of skip protection - twice that of other hard drive-based MP3 players on the market - so you can enjoy outdoor athletic activities without missing a beat.

Question 11: How does iPod provide skip protection?

Answer: In addition to the hard drive, iPod has a 32 MB memory cache. The cache is made up of solid-state memory, meaning that it has no mechanical or moving parts, so it is not affected by movement of the device. iPod skip protection works by preloading up to 20 minutes of music to the cache at a time. iPod plays music from the memory cache rather than the hard drive, so even rigorous activities won't cause music to skip.

Even though Apple company is telling us about 20min skip protection, I bet if you shake really hard enough it could skip songs hahaha!! nah.. Don't do that. Don't abuse your little cuttie ipod.