Customer Reviews

Apple iPod 40 GB White M9245LL/A (3rd Generation) OLD MODEL

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

I've owned all three 40GB players available today: Creative Zen, RCA Lyra, Apple iPod. This is the review I wish I had read before I started shopping. It was a originally more comprehensive but I had to trim it to 1000 words.

For the most part, the Creative Zen has the best features of the three, as well as the best price. It sounds like a no brainer except for the fact that these things break like crazy! If you read some of the other reviews on here, you'll see a few people mention that their headphone jack shorted out when they dropped the player....well mine shorted out while the player was sitting on my desk not moving at all. I don't know a single person who bought one of these players and didn't have their headphone jack malfunction! Many reviewers suggest buying an extended warranty because of this problem. I would most definitely agree with them on that one, but personally I don't have the patience to wait a few weeks every time the player decides to stop working. Those warrantees are supposed to be purchased just in case something goes wrong; not because something most likely will! The Lyra from the moment it came out of the box to the moment it stopped working for no apparent reason, four hours later, was on the whole a piece of junk. That said...on to the comparisons.

PRICE: As just about every anti-iPod reviewer mentions, THE IPOD IS MORE EXPENSIVE AND DOES PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING. The iPod is basically the BMW of mp3 players...the other mp3 player work like, and cost about as much as a Kia. They all do basically the same thing, but the cheaper ones are cheaper for a reason!

SIZE: All three players are smaller than a walkman, so it's kind of silly to even discuss this, but it seems to be a hot topic in the other reviews. From largest to smallest the players are ranked as follows: Lyra, Zen, iPod. The Lyra is the only one of the three which will not fit easily in your pocket. It is the widest /longest /heaviest of the bunch, and personally, I hated the way it felt in my hand. The Zen and the iPod were both a pleasure to hold.

CONTROLS/NAVIGATION: iPod gets first place here simple because it's touch sensitive navigation wheel allows you to get from the first album in your collection to the last in seconds and it stops on a dime anywhere in between. The Zen's controls are very good however it takes longer to scroll through your entire collection and when it really starts moving fast, it continues scrolling after you release the button sometimes skipping past another 50-75 albums! The Lyra had decent navigation, but the buttons had to be pushed more than once before they responded almost half of the time! The Zen and the iPod can be operated easily with one hand.

PLAYLISTS/SONG RATING: The Zen wins here without a doubt. It is the only one of the three where you can create, edit (even while it's playing) and SAVE multiple play lists on the player itself without connecting it to a computer. The iPod allows you to make ONE play list on the fly, which cannot be edited or saved.

The Lyra allows you to tag songs you like or don't like and it makes play lists of each...yes, it makes a playlist of songs that you tell it you DO NOT LIKE...if that doesn't explain what's wrong with this product, nothing will! The iPod allows you to rate songs 1-5 stars on the player, and then make a play list automatically based on those ratings when connected to a computer.

BATTERY: Again, Zen is the winner here. Not only does it offer a battery that lasts 14 hours instead of iPod and Lyra's 8 hour batt. it is also the only player of the three where you can remove and replace the battery when it deteriorates with age as all rechargeables do. It should be noted that the battery times I listed are the official times given by the manufacturers. The Zen actually lasts about 10 hours the other two go between 5 and 6 before needing a charge.

SCREEN: The Zen not only has the biggest screen of the bunch, it also scrolls the album title in the directory screen allowing you to see the whole thing instead of just the first few words.

TRANSFER TO PLAYER: All three units use USB 2.0, the iPod also can be used with Firewire.

TRANSFER FROM PLAYER: The Zen allows you to transfer music freely from your player to any computer loaded with it's software. The iPod does not allow this however third party software that can be purchased and used to pull songs from the iPod. In all honest, the Lyra broke before I could find out if you can pull songs off of it. </P>

SOFTWARE: iTunes is easy to use and offers tons of ways to organize your music. Creative Media Manager takes a lot of getting used to but is decent once you figure it out. Musicmatch, which comes with the Lyra is garbage. It`s slow, difficult to figure out at times, and constantly badgers you to buy the upgrade to its premium version.

EXTRAS: The only one that actually has extra features is the iPod which comes loaded with 4 different games, the ability to read text documents that are stored on the hard drive on the player's screen, a date book, and an address book. The Lyra's ONLY advantage over the other players is the fact that it comes with a complete car kit (charger/tape adapter)....which is pretty nice, but useless when the player turns itself into a paperweight after just a few hours. All three players come with a case....iPod's is the only one which does not give you access to the player's controls when it's in the case.

Hope this helped.

The iPod is awesome. That's a fact. So let me dwell on some practical advice here:
1. Instead of this item, buy the newer version of the Apple iPod 40gb (manufacturer cat no. M9268LL/A). The new version costs the same (as of October 2004) but has 12 hours of play instead of 8 hours. They look the same with similar description so BE SURE TO LOOK AT THE CAT NO.
2. Most likely you'll need a carrying case. Budget that in. The Apple one is nice but is around $50.
3. If you import a lot of CDs, your desktop or laptop might not have enough space on the hard drive. We're talking 40gb here! A good solution is to buy an additional hard drive. This can also serve as a backup (it's very depressing to import CD after CD and then have your hard drive crash...).
4. A very cost effective way to get an extra hard drive is to shop at your local computer store (e.g. CompUSA), look for the ATA drive that's on sale this week, and then, if you have a laptop, also get the "enclosure" that makes it into an external USB 2.0 drive. I just got a 160gb Seagate drive + the enclosure for around (...). Also great for backup of your music + pictures + hard drive etc.

Update: It went dead, probably because of a really bad power surge here, and Apple replaced it without questions in 72 hours. Nice work! My original review is appended. ****************************************************************
In what has to be the slickest execution of a new piece of hardware yet, this Apple-linked but PC-compatible product will make all portable music players obsolete in no time flat. I have been following trends in this area for a long time, and my last big MP3 player investment was in a SONICblue Jukebox. Wow, how fast things evolve! That machine, cutting edge 2 years ago, had a 6 gig hard drive and allowed only for rather slow uploading of music through its balky software interface via a USB 1.0. In addition, its organizational abilities were limited.
The iPod is about 1/10 the size of the old Jukebox, absolutely ultra high tech looking, with backlighting that awes and controls that work intuitively, and it uploads easily through a firewire or a USB 2.0 (optional) connection.
Music can be categorized and recalled quickly, with the scroll control making it all simple to access.
Sound quality is awesome, its earbuds light years ahead of anything similar. Capacity is incredible in the 40 gig model, holding 10,000 songs!(the 10 gig unit will hold 2500 songs, 15 gig unit will hold 3,700 songs, the 30 gig unit about twice that number). Battery life (6-8 hours when fully charged) is just fine. The (optional only in the 10 gig model, included with the others) cradle will recharge and synch the unit to your PC, but I bought the optional car charger for longer road trips. I also bought the FM transmitter that attaches neatly to the unit and allows you to play the iPod through your stereo sans wires, though the cassette adapter works better for that purpose.
A word about Apple's customer service: WOW! I ordered my unit on a Sunday, with the additional $19 for custom engraving on its silver back. In an hour I got an email that my order was being processed, and in 6 hours I got an email that it had shipped! The email included a tracking link, and I watched it move from Taiwan across the world in 2 days. I got it on Tuesday evening (!) and it was factory sealed/shrink wrapped and in fine condition. When I opened it (even the packaging is high tech) and took it out of its protective inner wrapper, I was delighted to find the engraving was there and was done just perfectly.
If delivering a great product and offering perfect service is to be lauded, Apple must be given the highest kudos possible.

The iPod is one of the first Apple products I have ever purchased...before the iPod the only apple product that I had the displeasure of using was QuickTime. However, with the extremely favorable reactions that the iPod recevied from many different magazines I went out to a store and decided to at least give it a shot. I fell in love instantly with its ease of use and look.

So I purchased the 40 GB model. The first thing I noticed about the product was its rather...unique packaging. After finally realzing how to open it and finding the rather small unit I followed the directions located in the iPod manual and connected it up to my PC. Installation was anything but easy. The software automatically overwrote a newer version of MusicMatch jukebox and any time I tried to open MusicMatch it only would crash on me. Thus, I was forced to uninstall Music Match completely download a new version off the internet and install it. Once this was completed I succeeded in getting the iPod connected successfully and working properly. However, using Musicmatch to transfer files to iPod was a horrible experience in general.

Via a tip from a magazine I installed Apple iTunes which is now available for the Pc and found an excellent very fast product which worked with the iPod flawlessly. If not for iTunes exteremly excellent intergration with the iPod it is quite likely I would have returned the unit however iTunes completely changed my opinion of the iPod and made it actually a pleasure to use.

The actual iPod unit itself is very nice. A exteremly stylish exterior and very easy to use controls and designs make it a pleasure to hold and use. Except for the fact that it can get dirty very easily there is almost no trouble at all in transporting it around. I have gone over quite a few bumpy roads and some quick jogging and found there to be absolutely no skipping even after a 10 minute+ exposure to conditions that make my Sony CD player skip like crazy.

The only problem I really experienced in the use of the product was the lack of ability to create and SAVE a playlist directly from the unit. For example you can select and browse through all your songs and make a temporary playlist using the iPod itself. However, in order to save a playlist it is required that you use iTunes or Musicmatch and import it in that fashion. This can be quite annoying when you are like me and like to make many playlists on the fly corresponding to your emotions. However, this is a small problem when looked at regarding the rest of the unit.

One other small qualm I had was that I have quite a few WAV files that are themselves compressed in mpeg layer 2 format within the WAV format. These files do not play properly on the iPod so if you have a lot of these for some reason (I do) be prepared for lots of converting.

The last issue I had with the iPod was that it only contains 1 Dock connector to firewire plug and this plug is required to both dock the iPod to a computer and also to connect the iPod to an AC socket. If another Firewire plug was connected it would be quite nice.

All in all I was pleasently surprised with the iPod in general. The player works quite well. My main tip to other users is to not even bother with the Music Match jukebox and instead download the new Windows version of iTunes available on Apple's website.

My iPod is the single most-used gadget I own BAR NONE! iPods work with both Macs and Windows machines.

Plug your iPod into your computer and almost instantly every song on your computer is sucked onto the iPod for transport anywhere. The iPod has the capacity to hold every song I own (my entire CD collection - and it's a big collection)! I now carry EVERY CD I OWN around with me in a gadget that's smaller than a pack of cards. And best of all, it will play them THROUGH MY CAR'S STEREO SYSTEM, THROUGH ANY HOME (or office) STEREO SYSTEM, or, of course, through earbuds while exercising, hiking, etc. All with remarkably high quality. When I play the iPod through my home stereo, I cannot distinguish the reproduction quality from that of the source CD itself - hence, I have not touched a CD since I got my iPod (except to load it onto my computer).

The iPod is the kind of product that puts a human face on technological advancement ... and it's smiling!

Compare the iPod to any other portable mp3 player in its class (meaning the price and storage capacity). The iPod beats them all in the areas of:
1 Durability (hard drive harder to ruin than on other players)
2 Ease-of-use (intuitive interface)
3 Aesthetic appeal
4 Highest quality audio output (great equalizers)
5 High Quality backlight
6 Useful palm-like organizer (but could be better)
7 Built-in compatibility with iTunes, audible.com, and other audio services

Unfortunately, the battery life could be better. I also have a complaint about the syncability of the iPod with multiple computers. The ease-of-use is also a downside, as the iPod does so much for you, if you do something unexpected, like sync with two computers, the results can tend to be unpredictable.

Nevertheless, the quality of the sound (it seems like you can get a louder output on the iPod than other players, which may contribute to the shorter, but acceptable, battery life) is better than other players. The size and ergonomics are the best. The price is a little higher, but justifiable considering the benefits.

Finally, my recommendation is to understand the player's downfalls before you purchase. Realize that this is a hard drive and even though it is better at standing up to a beating than others do not shake it vigorously, throw it, drop it, or put it in water. Just like any piece of electronics, especially those with precisely moving parts, it will break. I do not normally advocate buying a warranty, but in this case BUY THE LONGEST WARRANTY YOU CAN. If you use your iPod or any other similar player, the chances of you dropping it or it breaking from normal wear-and-tear are high. The warranty will be cheaper than replacing the unit. With all of those warnings etched upon your mind, go ahead and make the purchase. It will drastically increase the personal value of your music collection by making it more useful than ever to you. You will not regret this purchase.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an iPod fan. I am. At least, I really, really want to be. OK, I love the way the iPod works and looks and plays once my music is in there, but there are some shortcomings. Really, the biggest problem for me is that it has no idea how to handle multi-user environment in Windows XP. If my wife signs on to her account in our home office, my iPod asks her if she wants to erase my music and replace it with hers. It should know that I'm not signed on, and that the iPod is mine and not her's. Better yet, it should know that the two of us share the same music, although I'm sure the music industry wouldn't be happy with a husband and wife doing this, right? I decided that I didn't want iTunes to pop up and update when the iPod's in the dock and she's signed on, so I configured it. Naturally, I now need to update manually. I can get around these problems, but if Apple put as much thought into moving the iPod to Windows as it did into all of the fancy packaging, I'd have no troubles. I'm hopeful that they'll fix this.

[A MONTH LATER] After a month of owning my iPod, I now realize that iTunes is the weak link in the whole equation. The iPod is a superstar, behavior-changing product. iTunes is very basic and doesn't have the kind of robust organizational functionality one would expect.

Think about it: you have 10,000 plus songs to manage and organize, but very little database functionality beyond basic searching and sorting. Once you've got your 500 plus CD collection in there, plus all the music you've downloaded, creating a large playlist is an existential pain. You spend half your time searching around through a seemingly endless directory of titles, artists and albums. I'd love it if iTunes asked you if you wanted multiple copies of the same song in a playlist. I'd love it if I could click on a song and find out which playlists I'd put it in. Sadly, none of that exists.

In a world in which Apple is thought of as being ahead of the curve, iTunes seems a bit behind. That said, I'm sure they know it and are working to improve it.

I've had my 30GB ipod for 6 mos. & use it all the time. Overall, it has been worth the purchase price, but I was able to pay significantly less than the MSRP (before Apple stopped letting retailers that significantly discount from selling them).

The Good: For the average person, iTunes is a pretty good and simple way to create & manage your music collection. The ipod does fit in your pocket (i.e. front jeans pocket) & is an easy way to carry a lot of music w/ you while in the car, at the gym, etc & frees up time & energy from fussing w/ CD's while on the go. The sound quality is pretty good out of the box....it might not be audiophile quality, but the ipod is more about convenience & if you want to upgrade to better headphones you can. iTunes (on the Mac platform) rips tunes extremely well (i haven't noticed any glitches yet) & Apples propietary format, AAC, does sound better than mp3. The remote is very helpful to have, so that you don't need to pull it out of you're pocket to change songs or volume. It is easy to hold in one hand & maneuver the controls. Being able to store other things (address info, notes, etc.) & use it as a firewire drive is an added bonus. Not having too many interfaces to the iPod might seem to reduce it's portability/usability, however it is also probably the reason why it is more durable than other mp3 players. More connectors of different types would mean that there are more things that could go wrong & Firewire connectivity is better than USB as it dispenses with the need for making separate connections for data & for power. The 1 year warranty is better than many other mp3 players & the ipod is pretty durable.

The Bad: 1. No Gapless playback. Ipod & iTunes can't play an album without introducing a gap in between songs. Annoying in live recordings & concept albums and dj mixes become ulistenable. The workarounds are either to use the cross fade feature (which overlaps the 2 songs being played) or to import the whole CD as one track (making an extremely large track that taxes the ipod's memory buffer & battery, but neither option is satisfactory.

2. Actual battery life is even shorter than advertised. Unless you use a car to go everywhere (& by a car recharger) or have access to an outlet & carry a dock with you, the ipod will deplete its charge before you get back home.

3. It does scratch easily. If youre buying it for the pristine glossy look, you'll soon learn to get over this after the first scratch. The more you use it, the more it scratches.

4. Battery indicator doesn't work. Some times it shows a full charge, but then falls to 0 quickly, other times it shows no charge but plays for more than an hour afterwards.

5. Ear buds & remote tangle easy. There is no way to store these things without them getting completely tangled & you have to spend 5 minutes untagling them before you can listen to your ipod......every time you want to listen.

6. The remote control clip is not well designed. Functionally it's fine, but the gripper is too small to really attach it to anything & it comes off w/ the slightest amount of activity & so you get an extremely long cord falling to your feet on the treadmill...

7. No way to record with the iPod itself. You can use a third party attachment....but you have to pay out....and apparently the quality of these recordings are not very good...or am I the only one who'd like to record a conversation on the fly?

8. No support for FLAC or Ogg vorbis. Many audiophiles & music lovers have already copied music to these formats because of ability for gapless playback or for the wonders of open source.

9. No way to flag poor music files. Using the music rating feature to do this is a workaround, but cuts into the usefulness of using the music rating feature to rate your music. In fact there is no input ability at all, outside of rating your music.

8. Itunes needs significant improvements to accommodate the more serious music lover or archiver if it is ever to become the sole Application for music in one's digital hub. Allowing a song to be tagged with several music genres, allowing for multiple musical libraries (i.e. one for my archived music in lossless format, another for those files I convert to AAC to listen on my ipod), having different options (converting music into different formats, burning different kinds of cd's etc.) without having to change Preferences all the time, having information on the actual CD's you own (not just the music file info) or whether you converted the file to digital from an LP & how or other cataloging information that would eliminate the need for creating an Excel database....and I could go on with about 100 other features that it could have, but you get the point.

If you read reviews for the 4 main contenders in this market - the iPod, Creative Zen, Rio Karma and iRiver iHP - you'll notice that each has their pros and cons; none are perfect and you should decide whether you want to take to take the plunge now or later.

If your view in life is that you are going to pay $x00 to get a device then it must be near ideal - ruggedly constructed, fault proof, good product support, easy to use software - then do yourself a favor and don't buy yet. All the products have drawbacks and are not mature yet; if you expect value and reliability then wait a while. If you are OK paying $x00 for something that can be used now, but is likely to both get better and cost less in the future then try to determine which device is the lesser of evils for you.

iPod clearly has the most buzz. Great design and looks cool. Most people love the appearance and praise the touch sensitive buttons. It has a hold button to deactivate the buttons to avoid accidents; however, enough reviewers have complained that the hold button is easily broken and then the device can't be used. Some of the more geeky (non-Apple type) reviewers complain that the scrollwheel is annoying after a while and they resent being forced into this Apple-like interface. Everyone complains about the non-replaceable battery, yet this is the price of sturdy construction. iPod can be used as an external disk, and apparently stores files without problem. However, the music and data are apparently not separated; iPod reviewers complain about "white noise" in random feedback mode that comes from appointments / contacts created on the iPod during synchronization. Synchronizing music among computers, if you have more than one, seems to be an issue; research this before buying if you have multiple computers you want to be synchronized. Reviews for sound quality are generally (but not universally) positive. Reviews of Apple's support are generally poor; they seem to address issues in warranty, which covers a short time after delivery / pickup of item. After that it seems like you're on your own. iPod has no stop button; when new users mention this iPod veterans call it "unnecessary" and "so 20th century".

Creative Zen feedback suffers from construction quality, poor product support, difficulty of using the scroll wheel and reasonably consistent feedback about problems with the headphone jack. Construction quality is a difficult item. The Zen has a detachable face plate that allows the battery to be replaced. What is added in functionality (battery replacement) detracts in build quality as the face plate is prone to popping off. Drop if just a few inches on a hard surface and the faceplate pops off (but not if it's in its case). Many reviewers say the faceplate simply didn't fit well so they returned the Zen. Feedback on Creative's product support is universally poor; this is not limited to the Zen, it applies to all the company's products. The scroll wheel is finicky; it works most of the time but there is a learning curve for pressing it just right; new users say they have 50% - 75% success rate; some find it so frustrating that they just return the device. The Creative software is awkward / difficult to use and just plain doesn't load on some computers. Enough people have reported that their headphone jack doesn't work after a month of using the device to believe that Creative has some inbuilt manufacturing or quality control problem. The Zen doesn't support folders so it is not really a storage device; even with third party software that "creates" folders, documents and programs can't be launched from the Zen, so it is not a hard disk, it's a storage device at best. Reviews for sound quality are generally (but not universally) positive. The Zen has no stop button. Veteran Zen users have explained how to stop if that's what you want.

The Rio Karma feedback suffers from sensitivity in the hard disk. It seems like movement, even small movement, causes skipping in playback and even the device freezing. If you plan to carry the device around (it is a mobile device, right?) then this is something you might want to think about. Karma gets consistently good reviews for sound quality and connectivity from its docking device, which has RCA output jacks and Ethernet jacks for connectivity. Usability (button usage, feature selection, menu structure, display size and quality) also has good feedback. Repair seems to be an issue; some say the repair don't exist - you just have to buy a new player. Perhaps because of its smaller user base there is also a lack of accessories. Like the Zen, the Karma does not support folders and is not designed to be a data storage device. It only comes in 20Gb; enough for most people, not for those with large collections ripped at high sampling rates. The Karma does have a stop button.

There aren't many reviews for the iRiver iHP. Those that have it like it. The only complaint seems to be that the disk rotation is slow, leading to longer delays in some functions (playback and even a slow display of the menu?). Otherwise feedback seems to be good. No comments on reliability, warranty, repairs, accessories. No-one mentions whether there is a stop button, but the photos don't show one.

None of these are perfect. If you have the appetite choose the one that you think has the least deficiencies or is best suited to you. Accept that there will be better devices (or new generations of these ones) in a year or two that will cost less. If that is for you then pay the money, learn from the experience and you'll be a more informed buyer when you buy device #2. If you aren't into paying $x00 to learn and experiment, or the cons outweigh the pros, then wait a year or so.

As a longtime Apple fan forced to live in a PC world, I was thrilled to finally get my iPod for Windows. After getting used to the design, it's a great gadget to play with. And let's face it - it's a gadget. I continually hit the 'menu' button which I think should be a 'select' button. I can't really call it an Apple flaw.

I have not had the freezing up issues others have expressed. Software loaded easily. Musicmatch loaded ok too - but it's not horribly compatible if you're planning on using iTunes. Drag and drop technology would be beneficial - but these are trivial issues.

The 40GB holds so much music - you are almost required to build playlists. When fully loaded - or anything over a few hundred songs, it can be cumbersome to locate individual songs. I can't always let it randomly play this or that. Wayyyyyyy to controlling for that.

I have only really used my iPod when travelling. It's great for plane rides. I have yet to buy the adapter to use in the car - but when I do, I can kiss FM radio (except NPR) goodbye! I also have not yet used it while running - but hopefully there will be no issues w/this.

It's an expensive investment. IMO, totally worth it for a music lover. If you don't feel the need to put as much music on it as I have, save yourself some money and go w/a lower storeage iPod.