Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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460 of 473 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
you *MIGHT* love this iPod -- guide to upgrading to iPodfoto, October 31, 2004
Yes, unlike other reviewers, I do own a 40gig iPod Photo (as of 10/04)... and yes I do also own a regular 3G 15gig iPod (plus I'm not pushing IP Address harvesting scams like the "free iPod" reviews)... so this was quite an expensive UPGRADE decision for me...so this review is geared towards those struggling with an upgrade decision (for those who own a smaller/lighter 10-20gig music iPod)...I own both PC and Mac formats.
1) BOTTOM LINE: Although \very, very\ cool, I do not believe the trade-offs between the large size/weight and photo capability & extra battery life... are worth the enormous price (which includes a software purchase). Yes my 4 star rating is entirely based on how much incremental "stuff" you get versus what you have to fork over. But if money is not an object and you already own the larger/heavier 40gig variety, this becomes a "NO-BRAINER" upgrade - the `wow' factor is huge. If you travel quite a bit for business like I do, this is also a good addition to keep you company during trips.
2) PHOTO QUALITY: Good to "pretty good".. but not excellent... I do realize the size of the screen is only 2 inches, but photos tend to be slightly pixilated, even the full resolution ones that are over 2mb (though you stop noticing after a minute) and color reproduction is not all that great on skin tones and deep reds, but very good w/ greens&blues... which make pics of landscapes quite nice!
3) PHOTOS ON MY TV: Now this is where this thing shines... this is a really cool feature... the iPod includes a mini-plug-to-RCA-out (headphone to 3 pronged yellow/white/red) that produces cool results when you plug it into your TV.. you can scroll through your photos on your big (or at least bigger than your computer screen) TV screen. However, having only 2800+ photos on my iPod (that's more than avg), I got tired of flipping through & showing off my albums in about 2 days...
4) MUSIC: Besides not being able to see the screen as well w/out the backlight, it's the same as any click-wheel, 4G iPod.
5) SIZE/WEIGHT: If you already own a 40gig variety, you won't have much to complain about... but if you have a 10-20gig iPod, you will add more size and weight to your pocket (or bag). Moving from a 3G 15gig, this difference \to me\ is significant, as my iPod usually resides in my jacket pocket.
6) COSMETIC CHANGES: None on the outside, still scratches as easily as the rest, but has a color screen w/ a new font and screen looks very dark w/out the backlight.
7) BATTERY LIFE: Conditional based on the user... i never trust battery reviews on websites, as they vary DRASTICALLY when I employ my personal uses to the device. However, so far it seems to run near spec during mixed use... and much longer than my 3G iPod.
== SURPRISES OUT OF THE BOX==
A) NEED TO BUY SOFTWARE: In order to enable the cooler features - like syncing albums automatically, etc..., you need to purchase or own iLife (iPhoto specifically) 4.03 or better (if you are the rare few that bought your computer in the last few months w/ 4.0, you still have to download an upgrade to 4.03) ... Now I bought my iMac from the Apple website last Christmas and it still shipped w/ iLife 2.0... so I had to purchase iLife 4.0 (according to several company reps, there is no free upgrade from the jump from 2.0 to 4.0)...which took me an additional day to figure out... Yes, you can assign folders and such to sync to your photos to your iPod, BUT having an album editor enables full control of changes and what changes I'm making, to the entire process. Oh Yeah, you need a high version of iTunes as well; my pod came w/ ver. 4.7... IMHO, you \need\ the iPhoto upgrade to enjoy this purchase.
B) TRANSITIONS: Only the "wipe" from right-to-left is included, maybe more will be avail in the future, but you are not given a choice.
C) SLIDESHOWS: You cannot assign multiple music lists in iTunes to specific albums in iPhoto... as of 10/04, you can only assign a SINGLE music list to ALL photo albums when you enable the slideshow feature. Yes, you can change this music list, but need to go back to the menu to do so. Also, you can only display-to-TV in slideshow mode; you can't just flip through your albums in browse mode through your TV.
D) COLOR SCREEN: When not backlit, the screen during regular music playback turns \VERY\ dark, much more so than regular B&W iPods... you need a light source reflecting off of the screen in order to see the letters... typeface has changed too, more like "Arial" and slightly smaller. Oh yeah, with the backlight off, the screen still displays in color.
TECHNICAL DETAILS:
A) You cannot adjust the color quality, size, cropping or transitions of the photos when detached from your computer, so don't bother asking a apple representative on the phone or at the store- they don't make enough money to actually buy one themselves. I've tried two different stores the NY area.
B) Both the 40/60gig packages come w/ an iPod dock (if you don't have one already), but like the old ones, do not allow for use w/ thick iPod skins and covers.
C) Comes with an iPod dock WITH a S-Video output (new) and a solo USB 2.0 cord (finally!).
D) Yes, this is thicker and heavier than your 10-15gig, traditional music iPod.
E) If you never upgrade your iTunes due to the hacks you can employ on earlier versions, then you cannot use the photo feature (yes I tried).
[...]
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113 of 136 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
iPod and beyond, November 7, 2004
iPod business model
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What makes iPod a successful product? It's plain and simple - Apple has come up with an intelligent business model; sell music through the internet and use iPod as the "portable nexus" for easy access to our music in an organized manner. I think the toughest challenge that Apple has is to convince people that iTunes and iPod combination works. A lot of people like to buy cds - they want to have them in their own hands. Who doesn't? You get the cd and the cover art. That is the marketing tool of the music business and it has been working for a long time. At the end, that is how they justify the prices that they chargd on those music (average about $11 to $15 per cd for a standard album). I once belong to this group but the following reasons justify why I no longer want to buy cds... and to own an iPod.
Advantages
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1. Reduce Clutter
We have enough clutter in our house/life and cds don't help us to organize things better - we keep accumulating them. At some point, I said to myself, "Alright, this is it. I have to stop accumulating these cds." But at the same thing, we want to keep listening to new music. That's when Apple came to the rescue - by allowing me to store music in digital format. Thank god iPods don't get "fatter" as we store more music into it.
2. Portability
I am sick of carrying cds with me wherever I go. To make matter worse, I am good at scratching cds - I cannot help it. Hence, iPod totally eliminates my problem. Secondly, I own Bose SoundDock. Hence, I just dock an play! In the long run, I do not see a reason for me to buy huge audio equipment/speakers. I am just going to buy some more Bose SoundDocks and station them everywhere. As you can tell, I am not a big fan of earphones - I think they can do a permanent damage to your hearing down the road.
3. Album Prices
All album prices at Apple is set at $9.99. I love it - it will save me time from running to the stores and buying the cds and it also reduces "impulse buying at the store" to some degree ;). To top it all, it saves me money from spending $4 extra bucks at the music stores on a cd. Sometimes, I don't want to buy the whole album - iTunes thus gives us an option to buy one song for $.99.
4. Sleek design
One of the greatest thing about Apple products is their intuitive design(I am an Windows user but I admire Apple's creativity when it comes to this). The intuitiveness of Click Wheel is natural. Here is an example; a colleague of mind never used an iPod. She picked it up and start to listen to the song. She asked me,"How do you increase the volume on this thing?" 2 seconds later she said, "Whoaa! Never mind." That's how intuitive it is(you'll figure it out ;)). You can also attach album cover image to each album. I thought that was pretty cool although it takes up some space to store those images.
5. Organization
iPod allows you to customize your music by genres, albums, songs, and artists etc. After storing all your song collections into iPod, you can start using the playlist and smart playlist features in iTunes. Playlist simply allows you to organize your music using any theme, i.e. workout songs etc. Interestingly enough, smart playlist allows you to defines criteria so you can have a unique playlist without manually dragging songs into your playlist. For instance, you can say, "add songs to this list with an artist that has the name 'Maynard' in it but the genre is not Metal." As a result, if you have albums where artists name is 'Maynard', excluding the albums with the 'Metal' genre, iTunes will intelligently find all the songs that match the criteria in your jukebox and add it to the list. You have an option of whether to add the songs to the list as more albums are stored in your iPod or you can just commit it at that point. I think that is revolutionary (although not new to programmers that have been using this feature in their programming lives).
One thing to be concerned about
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1. Connector(Attachment)
I have been very careful attaching a monitor cable to the back of a computer. It so easy to bend those pins. I take the same measure with my iPod. Everytime I dock it, either to iPod docking station or Bose sounddock, I have the fear that the connector pins are going to get broken. That will be bad. Hence, be very gentle when you dock your iPod - don't force it in.
Awkwardness
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1. Music during exercise
During exercise, I found it awkward to strap the iPod to my arm. It's kind of big compared to some other players like Rio. Hence, I usually dock it to my Bose sounddock.
Advice
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1. Get extended Warranty
Remember, iPod uses a hard drive. If you like me who always drop things, get the extended warranty. It will save you some griefs in the future.
2. Defragment your iPod(Is it a good idea?)
Fragmentation happens when you add/delete individual songs/albums from the pod itself. If you do that often, use iPod update to restore the content to your iPod. I don't recommend messing around with a defragmenter.
3. Backup your harddrive
Always backup your harddrive especially if you buy music online and not planning to burn any backup cds. An investment on tape backup is worthwhile if you decided to purchase al music from iTunes.
4. Get a nice iPod protector
It's easy to scratch an iPod, especially the part in the back. Hence, use a protector case.
All in all, I realize this is iPod photo - that you can store photos and display them among other things. This idea hasn't grown in me yet. But I am sure when I start traveling, I will start using this feature.
Spending $599 on an iPod is a lot. Make sure you have your reasons to justify it. Like Suze Orman said,"The reason why we keep buying things is because of the fear that we don't have that item. Once we have that item, the fear is gone because we have the 'physical' item. Alas, we stop using the item because the fear is now gone! Don't spend money because of this reason alone - make sure you see your purchases as an investment. Enjoy!
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
(Quite) A Few Quibbles, April 21, 2005
Well, let me start by saying that this is a very good product. But it is FAR from perfect. I have many complaints, often quite petty (after all, this is my first iPod), but for the $500 or so price tag I expect CLOSE to perfect...
Quibbles:
1. You can't load pictures directly from the camera/memory card onto the iPod. Or, rather, you can't view photos loaded directly. In order to view photos, they must be moved to your computer and loaded through the iPhoto software. This is a MAJOR dissapointment for anyone travelling with their iPod and camera.
2. The (necessary) iTunes software is not compatible with Windows 98 or ME. Devastating to those of us with older computers full of MP3s.
3. The iTunes software is constantly redirecting me to their store. Very obnoxious.
4. I firmly believe that any product that costs me over a week's salary should come with all the necessary accessories. Noticably absent: a carrying case (if you dont want it severely scratched), flash card reader, fire wire, decent headphones, etc. etc. All told, be ready to sink another hundred (or three...) on "fun add-ons".
5. Could they not add some better games?? My cell phone has way better games than this. My TI-83 calculator (yeah, I was a bit of a nerd in high school) had better games than this. What a waste of a color screen...
Complaints aside, the iPod still rocks. The sound quality and design are unsurpassed; the software and database style song sorting are strong - there are clear reasons why the iPod is becoming a cultural icon of the digital age. But, given the price and potential for improvement, I wish I'd waited for a better version.
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