- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 738 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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7 out of 13 people found this review helpful
1.5 stars
"Poor Quality Player for the money"
Pros: Ease of navigation
Cons: Terrible sound quality, Buggy, itunes is poor interface
Summary: Okay, after doing all of the research, I finally bit the bullet and bought an ipod...and now I wish that I had bought ANY other player out there. Here are the issues I have with it:
1. Audio quality: poor. Even with MPEG4 (apple lossless) quality recordings on the PC, quality on the IPOD is still tinny, muffled, with stretched, indistinct bass. Put any IPOD up against an iRiver or Creative player and you will hear the difference immediately. Wonder why Apple won't release their signal to noise ratio or total harmonic distortion rates?? BECAUSE THEY STINK, THAT"S WHY.
2. File Format: No support for WMA. I'm sorry, but MP3 and AAC are lossy, truncated codecs with way too much slashed off the high and low registers...they just can't compare to WMA. WMA is more flexible, better quality, with smaller files. I have always used WMA for this reason, and after making the forray into AAC and Apple lossless, I can say unequivocably that WMA smacks the tar out of AAC, MP3, and MPEG4.
3. Software interface: iTunes is a marginal program that doesn't allow you to do very simple things that any other player does. For instance, you cant change the names of the composers of the songs...so if you have a compilation album with one artist, but many authors to the music (Like Paul Okenfold for example), then you can't group and search for his work by artist...only by album, and in the meta-tags it mixes all of the artists up. Even with the "group compilations together" feature on, it only effects it at the level of the album. Further, if you play iTunes and any other program side by side, head to head, you hear a distinct difference in audio quality. Then there's the issue of not being able to transfer (or rename) files from computer to computer. Sure, copyright protection...but if I own the CD, I've already bought it, and I shouldnt have to burn my whole friggin collection three times to get it on all of my PC's and get my pod to sync. All in all, Creative Media Source and Windows Media Player are much better software interfaces.
4. Customer Support: Abysmal. TAKE HEED!!! DEPENDING UPON WHERE THEY'RE PURCHASED FROM, MANY IPOD'S ARE NON RETURNABLE!!! I bought a 60 gigger brand new from a major and very reputable online certified apple retailer and tried to return it two weeks later and was told that it was an unreturnable item. So I called Apple and they told me that yes, it is unreturnable. Unlike every other player out there, if you get it and dont like it, you cant take it back. CAVEAT EMPTOR.
5. Audible.com support: Sure, it supports all of audible's codecs all right, but it has no controls to skip to parts of the books, no way to bookmark, no quick fast forward or rewind, and no skimming feature. If you have a 7 hour audiobook and are at say hour 4 and accidentally bump it wrong and it resets (or it freezes up and you need to hard reset), you have to either spend 20 minutes holding down the fast forward button to find your old spot, or just turn it on and let it sit and play for 4 hours and hope you come back and catch it at the right spot. Further, if you want to review a portion of the book or return to a section later, you have to manually hold down the fast forward (and it only skips in increments of 20 seconds....SLOWLY). TOTALLY RIDICULOUS. So what I have done is burned the books to DVD from the Audible manager and then burned the DVD's back onto the computer in wma format (where I can modify the file to place bookmarks or track numbers using media player, then convert to MP3, and uploaded it from there to the ipod. PAIN IN THE BUTT. If I knew I was going to have to go through that, I'd have just bought an iRiver.
6. Battery Life: Terrible. They say 8 hours...it's more like 6. These things absolutely SUCK power. Every other player out there beats the snot out of the IPOD in battery life. I travel a lot, and I am constantly charging this thing...LAME.
7. Appearance and controls: Scratches way too easily. Control wheel is okay, but I much prefer either a pushbutton or the vertical navigation bar on the Creative model. Turning your thumb around and around gets to be a pain in the butt especially when you're driving, and the ease of a single bar or several buttons would be welcome to that infuriating wheel.
All in all, if I could return this thing, I would probably buy either an iRiver or a Creative Zen. I really do not like the player, iTunes, AAC, or the lack of controls for audible files. A total waste of money and time. I will never buy an apple product again
- 7 replies to this review
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First of all your knowledge on compression formats is all wrong. MPEG4 is simply MP3 with apple DRM. Your review should be completely disregarded due to the fact that you know nothing. Look up Xplay on GOOGLE and then hit your head a couple times to see if the idiocy is shaken out. You gave me a good laugh Mr Apple hater.
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1. Audio Quality - The audio quality depends on format and sound quality settings yes, but if you have bad earphones or speakers...thats what it is up to. If you want exteremly good quality, take off the black covers on the earbuds (helps muffeling), or buy better headphones.
2. Battery life - The iPod (since july 2004), has had a 12 hour battery life...and mine as always lasted for about 12. The product your making a reveiw/own for is not the product listed on the site. Your own the 3Generation iPod. Don't confuse people with your inaccurate reveiw.
3. Format - WMA is NOT a good format...SORRY! WMA format is significantly worse quailty for the same file size when compared to MP3 or ACC. That's just personal preference of yours, and don't make false claims about it being better when it is just the same or worse.
4. iTunes - iTunes is much better and has much many more features than Windows Media Player 10. Also, your wrong, you CAN change composer names. Someone who can't understand how to do something shouldn't be complaining about the product. FYI, you can select composers to view in the regular format, or right click and "get info" and then change the composer there. You can select multiple tracks and get info and change multiple tracks at once!
5. Support/Customer Service - I don't know what your expecting from Apple. For many years...apple has had a excelent reputation for good customer service...My iPod photo had a dead pixel and they replaced it no questions asked.
6. User Interface - All I can say is that an iPod is much easier to use than other MP3 players...and I've used many MP3 players. -
I was at first happy with my ipod . After using it, and the lame software itunes I realized the severe limitations of this apple TOY. I learned a $300 lesson .Apple has a fantastic marketing agency selling this TOY to us . They even got the pop music band U2 to help out in their tv ads."Uno dos tres catorse" bono sings the ipod theme (thats one two three FOURTEEN....)I should have known better.
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The only logical reason for him not liking this product is that he works for microsoft.
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I listen to Audiobooks on my iPod approx. 1.25 hours a day on my commute. I love it. Unfortunately, you are in error about not being able to fast-scan or otherwise quickly move through the audiobook currently playing. You should probably read the manual before making a review like that.
Anyway, there are a couple of methods to do this. Here is the one I use when I want to move quickly through either a song or an audiobook that is currently playing:
1) Press Pause on the iPod
2) Press the center button in the middle of the scroll wheel
3) Use the scroll wheel to advance or go back through the timeline. (It is very cool the way the wheel automatically picks up speed or slows down in respose to your scrolling action - try it to see what I mean)
4) When you're where you want to be, press Play again.
It's that simple!
Now if your misunderstanding of this feature of the iPod is anything to go by, I am not so sure about your other pronouncements about the audio quality, none of which I can say I've personally witnessed. It sounds teriffic to me.
kanakapeke -
the ipod is a great player sure it lacks some features but look at wut player everyone wants look at what player is sold out all the time its the ipod u need to rate mp3 players better
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I have a few questions about your review. First off I was wondering what genration of Ipod u were talking about. I am currently a Creative Zen Xtra owner and in the review you refer to your regret of not getting a Zen. The only fault with Creative is that they have only one hard drive mp3 player that is supported by audible. That is the one i have, and it's huge. It does not come with any touch features and is very basic(2003). There were 3 things that captivated me
1-audible supported (only type 4 though-sigh)
2-bookmarks for audible
3-the price tag ($180)
It has excellent sound quality and a 14 hour battery life. I will recommend it to you because u seem desprate for a better player.
Where to buy
Apple iPod (20GB, fourth generation):
$349.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$349.99 | Yes |
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