Customer Reviews

Apple iPod 20 GB White M8741LL/A (2nd Generation) OLD MODEL

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

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.
Now to get the music to your iPod you have to have a firewire port. Many computers don't come standard with this so you may have to invest about $35 to get a firewire card. Trust me, make the investment. All those people that complain about not having USB support do not know what they are talking about. The reason you want the firewall card is simple - speed. There is more then a 10x difference in the amount of information a firewire card can transmit versus a USB card. For example, lets say you have 10 Gigabytes of songs to transfer. With USB, you are talking about 8-10 hours to transfer all that information. With firewire you are talking about an hour tops. Time saved alone makes the $35 investment worthwhile.
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 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 program called 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 removing the songs on the iPod and adding them again. On top of that, it supports calender, contacts, Audible functions that MusicMatch doesn't. Basically, it is everything that MusicMatch should have been but isn't. Did I mention it is free? Remember, do NOT use the iPod disc that comes with, because MusicMatch will drive you crazy, instead get ephpod and enjoy the fantastic MP3 player that is the iPod.

At this point I have had my iPod for a week. I went with the 10GB model, but now I think I might go and buy the 20GB model.
It is just that good.

Pros:

The iPod itself is a great product. I have owned three previous MP3 players, inlcuding the a RIO, and a Compaq. I always felt shortchanged, I gave them away or sold them, because I didn't like them.

The iPod is what all MP3 players should be like. I had no hitches installing the software, and getting songs loaded. Can't say that for the my previous 3. Something important to me was that other MP3 players don't seem to be able to drown out outside sound sources. The iPod gets loud enough to drown out sound and more. I have nothing bad to say about the iPod itself, it is sleek, small, has tons of space, and the Firewire connection downloads at blazing speed compared to a USB.
This is an outstanding product, although pricey, but well worth every penny.

Cons:

To find something wrong with the iPod you'll have to look at the software it comes bundled with. MusicMatch has made a decent attempt at software for the iPod, but it does fall short. It doesn't download the tag information for MP3's correctly. Therefore you will see misspelled artists and repeated names on your iPod screen, even when they don't show that way on the computer. To fix this, I found deleting the tag completely (just editing it doesn't always work), and then re-creating the tag for each song fixes the problem. However, be warned when you delete the tag information for a song, MusicMatch will place it at the top of the list in your Music Library screen, and file it under Miscellaneous. All you have to do is go there and re-create the tag and MusicMatch will place it in its proper place. Also MusicMatch will truncate band and song names for no apparent reason. Fixing this isn't too bad for one song, but since the iPod's can carry thousands of songs, this is a real problem. I must say though, that MusicMatch does allow you to edit and re-create tag information for multiple files at once. So this helps a little when editing entire albums. But the software developers at MusicMatch have let the public down by letting this one slide through. Don't you guys test your software before you put it on the shelf? How could you guys have missed that? (I develop software by the way).

There are other bugs in MusicMatch, but I won't go into them here. The one described above is the real annoying one. MusicMatch would be well advised to take care of this soon.

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 your 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 its 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.
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 propostion. 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 to to do 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 current recommendation then is to wait till the fixes are added in a new version of MusicMatch or buy the Apple iPod and XPlay software so that it can run on Windows.(Doing this by the way provides you the option to jump platforms from Windows to Apple and back, something to think about) Personally, I am going to return my Windows iPod and try the XPlay method and see what happens.

I have had my iPod for Windows for about 2 weeks now and I must say I am impressed. The unit is sleek, intuitive, lightweight, and I have had NO problems using it when jogging. In fact, it's so unnoticeable that I'm afraid I might lose it one day. The web based support is (so far) very helpful (I couldn't get the remote to work at first, so I went on line and quickly learned that you really need to push the connection in FIRMLY in order to get it to click and then it works fine). On the down side, I agree with most other people that MusicMatch is a joke. I wish I could figure out why MusicMatch was picked over a host of alternatives. It is just plain awful. After playing around with it by trial and error (the instructions were most unhelpful), I was finally lucky enough to come upon ephpod and lo and behold, I can now use the iPod as it was meant to be used. Also, and this is key, you simply must download Exact Audio Copy and the LAME mp3 encoder for the most reliable music transfers possible. This is not free advertising! I sincerely think this (free) software is indispensible. I have now transferred both popular and classical music and the quality is superb. Do yourself a favor and forego the MusicMatch program. You'll save yourself alot of headaches! Also, although the ear buds are OK for popular music, I wouldn't recommend them for classical music. But otherwise, this was money well spent. I'm thinking of getting a second one when I fill up my 20 gigs, which won't be long from now!

To address some complaints I have read at this website: When you chose the "hold" key, a little lock appears in the window to let you know that you cannot make any changes in settings. As for fingerprints, they wipe off easily with a soft cloth. The remote is small so it is possible to accidently fast forward to the next song unintentionally, but who wants a cumbersome remote? You adjust to how it must be handled quite easily. The leather carrying case is great and I feel that it is well protected when placed inside it. The only downside to this unit is the MusicMatch program. Hopefully Apple will change this soon.

Trust Me-MusicMatch can ruin one's iPod experience (so many glitches, I will not even try to list them). ... Don't get my review wrong-I like my iPod and use it daily and probably would not buy any other model, but ... I think they need to change a few other things. ...

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.

I'm a gadget junkie, but this is the first MP3 player that I've owned. I decided it was worth waiting for Apple to come out with a version that is Windows-compatible rather that purchase a similar, but inferior, product from one of Apple's competitors. Also, I wanted to make sure that the battery life would be sufficient to make the trip to the the West Coast and back with a reasonable expectation that the battery life would be long enough to make it 8-10 hours.

I have not been disappointed and am really glad that I waited to buy the iPod. Currently, I have loaded about 150 of my CDs onto the iPod, and this translates to 2,650 songs at the best recording setting. I still have about 35% of the available storage space available, so the estimate of 4,000 songs is spot on target. Aside from the well-documented headaches associated with the MusicMatch software, this thing is simply terrific.

By the way, I highly recommend that you check out the great line of iPod cases, particularly the new ones for the 20GB model, at vajacases.com. I came across vaja's PDA cases here in New York City, and they're simply the best that I've found in the aftermarket. Ditto for the cases for the iPod.

Where do all of these effuscent reviews come from? i've never seen such blind adoration of anything; it reminds me of a cult.

In any case, i just bought the 20G ipod the other day. For once i didn't shop around and i just trusted my friends' raves concerning the iPod and dove into [money]worth of impulse buying. i'll never make that mistake again.

To be fair, the iPod is sleek, sexy, small and lightwight. The packaging rocks, the documentation rocks, the interface (at face value) rocks.

The size is the same as any other Jukebox of the same size. So let's not rave about that.

Some people have complained about the earphones. If you spend 500 on an mp3 player, buy yourself the earphones you want and stop yer whining.

There are no batteries so if you run out of juice, yer done. Having said that, they claim an 8-10 hour battery life, it takes 1 hour to recharge 80%, 4 hours for 100%. i can live with that. The charging adapter is a little square rectangle, not the hideous clunky adapter i'm so used to hating.

The silver case smudges. Get over it. People who worry about smudged cases are far less cool than people with smudged cases.

i copied hundreds and hundreds of songs in 50 minutes. Wow. Then again, i don't see why i'm so important as to not need to wait overnight. But hey, i'll take it.

MusicMatch stinks. Fine. Personally speaking, i manage my mp3's on my own. All i need is a program that facilitates copying the mp3's from a certain directory to the iPod. MusicMatch did that on the first try without any problem. If you don't like MusicMatch, use another program to manage your mp3s and just use it to transfer new songs.

(i admit i've only loaded it once and i've read reviews that mention the long amount of time it takes to make incremental updates. Then again, some people make it sound like they plug it in every day. i don't need that much instant gratification.)

My BIG gripe is how music is organized. Your options are Artist, Album, Song, Genre and Composers and these are set in the ID tag in each mp3. So you have to have these set correctly. Personally speaking, i arrange most of my mp3s by album, but i have a large folder of "singles." These all fall into their own individual Artist, Album and Song categories. i would far prefer the iPod to replicate my directory structure. Now i need to go through 8 gigs of mp3s and clean up ID tags.

Which leads to the biggest failing of the iPod. You cannot queue up songs. You can play all songs from any of the above categories (artist, album, etc) but that's it. People point out that you can create and save playlists from your PC, but when i'm on the subway and i want to play 2 of band X's 6 CDs in a combined setlist that shuffles, i'm SOL. Personally speaking, i AM so important that i should be able to listen to what i want, when i want.

Sorry, i didn't buy an mp3 player to make me cool. i did it to listen to the huge amount of music that i own whenever and wherever i want. If i can't mix and match music on the fly, what's the point?

i'm especially amazed that Apple just released an update to the firmware and it doesn't address this GLARING issue. It's the most expensive player out there, get with it!

If this problem was solved, i'd be far closer to raving about the iPod. Honestly, once you're listening to the music you want to listen to, it's great. The screen is large and easy to read, even if it does cut off long names. (An easy problem to solve with a firmware update, i would think.) Volume, forward/backwards and pause are all easy to use. i have no complaints.

i'm not saying that other mp3 jukeboxes are better. But don't fall prey to the overwhelming and, to be frank, unjustifiably manicly adulate reviews of the iPod. Look around and make sure you get what you want. There's a LOT to like about the iPod, but counter culture cred doesn't eliminate it's glaring and legitimate issues.

...Instead, take the disk that comes with it and put it away. Never, ever install it. Instead go do a search for Epdpod. Download and install that. Its basically everything MusicMatch was supposed to be but wasn't. Pretty much every problem you will have with MusicMatch does not exist with this software. Even better, its free. Repeat, do not ever install MusicMatch, install Ephpod.
Ephpod and iPod, a wonderful match.

I purchased a Creative Jukebox III in June, 2002. I have had nothing but trouble with it. It crashes the Creative Playcenter software which came with the jukebox everytime I connect it to my Dell 8200 computer with Windows XP. I've sent it in and got it back with absolute no improvement. I have spent hours and hours of unloading software, reloading software, downloading new drivers, new firmware, new software, reformatting the Jukebox and other things recommended by Creative's support.

Then I bought the Ipod 20 gig for Windows. I love it. I have it almost full. I prefer using the Musicmatch Jukebox software over Creative's. Just be sure to use the version 7.1 which comes on CD with the Ipod and do not download a newer version. Musicmatch does not support the Jukebox III.

Just a little background... I've owned a couple other MP3 players before this one. One being a hard drive unit (nomad) and the other was a smaller solid-state type from creative (can't remember the name). Both were really bad from a number of standpoints, but I won't go into that.

Anyway, I've got to say in Apple's defense, I don't find the price excessive. Apple went out of their way and appear to have selected\built in some very nice quality "user interface" features. This isn't a cheap plastic molded device that cost apple $40 to make. Being in electronic design, I can tell ya the LCD screen is top notch...I would guess they pay quite a bit for that alone. EVERYTHING else follows suit. So although it's not cheap in comparison to other "similar" products, you DO get what you pay for in hardware and software.

I will agree with everyone that musicmatch isn't great. In fact, I went ahead and invested in 3rd party software which I REALLY like. IMO, it's worth it!

Also, to those that are not satisfied with the "load time" between songs, especially when your trying to play cross\beat mixed tracks, I suggest you buy or download some freeware that takes the multiple tracks that you want and makes ONE MP3 file. Problem solved.

My ONE single complaint about this is the lack of an FM receiver and or voice recorder. This is the reason for the one missing star. Should have been included...it's cheap to build-in and wouldn't affect the power\size at all.

If you want the best and can part with the money, this is DEFFINATLY the one you want for now.