Touch the Future Now at Staples
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 68 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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9 out of 18 people found this review helpful
2.0 stars
"Not worth the hassle"
Pros: Slim design, good capacity
Cons: Expensive accessories, a major headache with Apple-only software, Battery life is a joke, not very compatible with media formats, not many features
Summary: The only good thing that I can think of with this particular mp3 player is that it has a large drive (60 gig) as video will eat it up quickly. The battery life is horrible and since it only comes with a USB cord for recharging, you'd better have a computer nearby for a slow recharge. The extra functions, those beyond music and video, are worthless...who needs a clock that gives you time in various cities around the world? A traveler? Well, you won't be able to travel far AND watch video...the battery will die. NO F.M. radio (so you can't record radio--a pretty neat feature of other mp3 players), no voice recording.
The biggest trouble was iTunes and the fact that the iPod is not compatible with other software. This is due to Apple's attempt to make the iPod exclusive-use of their software and music download site. IE: a GREAT program for tagging and organizing music files is MusicMatch. It can catalog large amounts of music MUCH faster and easier than iTunes. But Apple made sure that the iPod doesn't work with the software because of some stupid fight between the two. Perhaps Apple should let potential buyers know that you are going to be pidgeon-holed into using the subpar iTunes. And so the iPod is also not very compatible with other media formats either. You have to convert your video format into QuickTime in order to load it and it also doesn't accept WMA...again, another conversion. Another frustration: it came with a pre-set list of folders, one of which is titled "Audio Books". Too bad it doesn't show up on the iTunes software. So there is no way to get audio books into that folder. If you want to click and drag an audio book into that folder, guess what?...another conversion because it will only accept two 'spoken word' formats.
Design?: we know Apple, your no-moving-parts, just-a-click-wheel design is clean and stylish. Now get over yourself and for the love of God, add a seperate volume control! A couple extra buttons isn't going to ruin the image (isn't it a little spartan as it is anyhow?). Click wheel for everything?...It is just plain annoying.
If you are going to start a NEW music collection and intend to do it EXCLUSIVELY through Apple and iTunes, go ahead and get this i(only)Pod. But if you have existing music and want a flexible mp3 player that will accept whatever you can throw at it...keep looking. I'm waiting for the Creative Zen Vision:M. A 30 gig player that will be LOADED with extras including a better video screen. It will also come with some of the things that Apple makes you pay an exorbinant amount of money for after paying upper $300 for the iPod. It is also going to have a battery life that will make the iPod look tired. The only bummer, it is only 30 gig. Oh well. In 5 years, iPod will not have anything more than 30 or 40% market share due to inflexibility.
Oh, and by the way, I had a 4th generation iPod before and returned it for the same reasons. Well, not all the same, now there is video frustrations to add to the iPod's shortcomings. So this Christmas present is heading back to the store.
- 3 replies to this review
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Who wants to record radio when you have mp3's ???
pointless feature.
Ipod does have voice recording which it think is better to be separate, as for the built in recorders you hear the humming of the harddrive spinning like on the Creative Zen. The voice recording of iPod is VERY GOOD, compared to other recorders i've tried.
Bottomline, everything is MADE for ipod, from stereos to cars. -
to put the video in quicktime....you can use third party software.Also,who uses wma?mostly everyone uses mp3 and sounds better too.Also,musicmatch is alright but isn't better than Itunes because Itunes opens up sligthly faster.Also,your audiobooks problem is that you just open the audiobook and then drag the audiobook to the iPod's name and then it's in the audiobook.I have an iPod 5G 60GB Black and it's not my first one.I had a Dell Dj.Boy oh boy,Dell dj gave me some problems.
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you nailed all the issues i have found with iPod 60gb! by itself the iPod is fine, but iTunes is very weak application with weak functionality compared to Creative's awesome "MediaSource Organizer"...i should've stuck with Creative!
Where to buy
Apple iPod (60GB, video, white):
$179.99
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$179.99 | Yes |
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