Apple iPod Photo (60GB)

August 3, 2005 11:40
Excellent
2.0/5
I've had my new 60 GB color iPOD for about 30 days now. This is not my first portable digital audio player and in this case, I know it won't be my last.

When my old 20GB player died, I spent a lot of time reading about everything that's out there and everything that's expected to come out in the near future. I wanted to buy something for keeps. So, I went al out and bought the 60GB version.

I got that one because I have around 7,000 songs ripped at 320kbps. So, I love better sound quality. I am really into digital photography and wanted to make sure I could have a player that will empty my camera's memory card when I'm away from home.

I am in the custom side of the consumer electronics business so I have lots of friends with portable audio players. Everyone that owns an iPOD talks about the strength of available accessories. I'm coming to agree with this. I found an unbelievable deal on a ipodz case that is really good quality. Then there's the apple accessories, optional photo dock and camera adaptor (for file transfer without a PC). I also bought the iTrip fm modulator that sits on top of the iPod so you can listen to your library while in the car.

The reason I mention easily scuffable is that I have three friends that have iPODS from varying years and al three agree that it scratches and blemishes quite easily. So, I bought mine with an OPTIONAL lined leather case and immediately shoved it in there. I have to slip it out of the case to slip it in the dock and just that action alone causes small scratches on the front and also on the metal back. I don't know why they haven't addressed this. My old player looked terrific years after I bought it and I seldom kept it in a case.

i-Tunes is the software that you install in your computer to rip, sync and manage your music library. It has some good things but what you should know is that is has some glaring shortcomings. If you have a library of 50 or more albums installed and you want to play all the songs by a certain artist, you might have a hard time doing this since the software may give first credit for some of those songs to another artist that collaborated on the song/album. A strong case in point is Santana's recent album which has several guest artists. Another glaring issue is identical album names. Let's say that you went to the music store and bought the "Greatest Hits" albums from all your favorite artists of the past. i-Tunes and the iPOD see all the albums as just one album and you end up with a big mess when you look for a Greatest Hits album. This means you have to rename it to something "Eagles Greatest Hits" or Queens Greatest Hits. Another shortcoming is the naming of CDs. Sometimes it sees an album as an import when it is not. This means that it just named the songs incorrectly.

As for my issue with the iPODS sound quality. I'm use to clear, clean, dynamic and distortion free music. I use some $40 some in-the-ear phones that really sound terrific. Unfortunately, there are lots of times when I can clearly hear audible distortion coming from the iPOD. This can be with the battery charged, EQ defeated and the volume low. I can repeat the music with different settings and hear the same distortion over and over again. It just wont' go away. I check the PC library with the same headset and no distortion. In fact, it sounds terrific.

iPOD navigation seems great for small libraries. But it's rather tedious when you have a big one. i-tunes wants to just throw all of your files on the iPOD when you first dock. This may lead to seasonal music playing when it shouldn't. Not to mention all those B-Side songs that I just ripped to get the whole album in my PC collection. The best way I've found to deal with this is to tell i-tunes to auto-sync only the playlists that I check. then create smart playlists using the star rating system. Then go in and hand rate 0-5 stars for every single song you want to have copied to the iPOD. Then, use the iPOD playlists function to play nothing but 4-5 star songs or 3 star songs, etc. And yes, it is very time consuming. However, If you're willing to invest the time, the result is pretty good. Now if I could just get it in and out of shuffle play more easily.

Viewing photos from your PC is a neat feature. It's really just more than bragging rights to show previous iPOD generation owners.

Podcasts are well supported. Its nice to be able to subscribe to a podcast and know that it automatically syncs new episodes to you iPOD whenever docked. I never realized that I would like this. I do very much like it.

I'll keep this unit for a year or two until someone develops a 40+GB player with high sound quality. If it sounds good, all the other shortcomings can be overcome, right?
When that happens, I'll sell this one at a loss to get the other. After all, I bought it to listen to music, right?

- aadmikep

July 30, 2005 02:56
Mediocre
1.0/5
Let's get this straight. I own one of these pieces of junk. I am not reviewing it out of ignorance. I made the HUGE mistake of ditching my iRiver H340 for this thing because everybody swears by iPOD. I have owned three different players previous to this - I'm a bit of a gadget hound. So I know what I'm talking about when I say this thing is truly horrible. I feel so ripped off. You can't maintain directories and subdirectories in this thing. FOr those of us who truly have a lot of music, this becomes almost unmanageable. It is all built around playlists. Let me get this straight, I download alot of legal stuff through Kazaa: old radio shows, out of print and obscure music, etc. So I have a legit set of music, all of which has inconsistent tags. This thing makes a mess of all that. So I get this great program called Anapod, which automatically takes my directories and makes playlists out of them. Wonderful program. It is what iTunes SHOULD be. Then I go back into iTunes for the overhyped podcasting and it erases all 45 gigs of stuff I put into it! I guess iTunes assumes we are too stupid to manage our own libraries and destroys everything because it knows better. iTunes by the way stinks on so many levels. I don't get the hype. Ripping CDs is a pain, the process of creating playlists is cumbersome, their music selection is atrocious..bad, bad, bad! Apparently, the people who like iTunes haven't used Winamp. I love how you have to "eject" the player each time you are done with it or risk corrupting your tracks. What is that about??? iPOD lovers - do you understand that all this isn't normal?!? THere are several good players out there where these problems don't exist. Sure, it is pretty and has a neato interface - best looking player around. But dear God - how can you be so lulled by appearances?!? Oh yeah, this is the general public, who is lulled by SUVs, American Idol, & other shallow appearance driven merchandise with nothing under the hood. Understand also that it is mostly Apple lovers who adore this thing. They stand by inadequate products with religious conviction. If it has Apple on it, they would never rate it poorly. Take the Newton for instance. Stop supporting these guys. Buy a Cowan, iRiver, or Sony! Wise up!

- jasonbryanmiller

March 29, 2005 08:26
Excellent
2.0/5
The trouble with the IPod is too many people believe the hype. This is evident from the reviews I have read by those who have either not even bought one yet saying how great it is or else just bought and those first few days were okay before battery power problems etc etc surfaced.

I am a Mac user (have a Powerbook) but how can they leave out a radio from the Pod? And like all these companies they want to tie us into their own services. My message to all these companies: I am the consumer and I WANT WHAT I WANT, not what THEY want me to want. I want a radio, no subscription requirements or being forced not to use certain other firms' services.

IRiver looks like the deal - but does it work with the Mac?

- Kuangkhot

September 13, 2005 03:25
Good
1.5/5
The ipod is a really sleek looking device , there is no better designed hard drive player to slide into your pocket. It has no protruding buttons levers ect. It has tons of aftermarket accesories and a fantastic advertising campaign . This is (I mean was ) my second ipod .... my first ipod experience was terrible but I bought this one with an open mind , let the past be the past.
First of all and most important of all is the sound of the ipod .That is the ipods first problem .The volume is low compared to most hard drive players .The preset equalizer is basically useless . Wheres the bass ? All I hear is midrange and highs and if theres bass its distorted. Even $100 flash players kill the ipod in sound quality. The whole idea is that a digital player should sound as close to cd as possible and be compact....well its compact but it sounds cheap.
Forget itunes....its the same as I remember from my first ipod experience ..its just a software program that locks you into the store and limits your ability to actually own the music you pay for.
Picture viewing is a great addition but the pics look bad and small , you would be better off viewing your pictures through your digital cameras lcd , honestly.
Battery life (I didnt keep it long enough to test this ) is less than other hard drive players and non removable battery may bother you.
Alternatives to ipod: Archos sound quality kills ipods ,Archos picture viewing/movie playing recording tons of features but physically bigger and not as polished finish .
cowon iaudio x5l : Amazing sound quality ,extreme volume , 35 hr battery , the best looking player , drag n drop files ,compact and solid.....but it doesnt support any online music services as of yet.

- max-9

December 16, 2005 10:47

4.5/5
iTunes makes downloading your favorite music into your iPod super simple. Hardest part is adding CD's that are made by you or iTunes can not find album info on. This is a problem w/most programs in this field as well. I love that it holds my outlook addresses & calendar info. I don't carry a PDA & this keeps all my contact/calendar info I need w/out having to carry the extra stuff. My phone only holds so much & mailing addresses are not one of them. When I got back from vacation I was able to share my photos, complete w/soundtrack annd no fuss. All in all, this outperforms everything. The only downs are that the AV cable is not included & if you don't keep it in a sleeve, case or both it can get scratched or damaged easy. For the $$$ it is worth it.

- harley88

August 19, 2005 01:36
Mediocre
1.0/5
I am a previous owner of a SONY VAIO pocket vgf-ap1L which i loved but got stolen, their software Sonic stage is just useless for file management but is very reliable and the machine is kinda chunky but is a very well made it have a beautiful solid metal casing and is made in japan(unmatchable built quality). SOOO i decide for a replacement i go for the much applauded Ipod! THE biggest mistake i ever made! first of all the Best buy sales 'geek' told me that it would work with my old pc with USB1.1, IT WILL NOT WORK ON USB1.1!!!! so i hafta transfer all my music to my laptop with USB2.0 all 5GB of it! Second Itune look like it got alot of good function that Sony's sonicstage doesnt have... it does but most the time it doesnt work!!! it would get stuck for 5 minutes then mysteriously come up, wont let me edit song info on some song but let me do it on other for unknown reason, crash my computer several time, the moment i plug in the ipod even with itune disable it wont let me unplug i have to turn on itune to 'safely' disconnect! which take a few minutes! i called up Apple tech support after i was told to reboot the ipod several time and then restore it to factory setting wiping out all my songs which takes 2 hours to upload again from the pc. They couldnt resolve ANY of the issue and just blaime it on the computer and user! AND GET THIS! with a purchase of a $400 ipod u only get one free technical support call FOR ONE ISSUE ONLY! if u try asking about anything else even on that one call she said she would have to start billing me! so i told her i would have to refund this machine and the girl couldnt care less! now i am no technology green horn or am i unfamiliar with how technical support works, i am a tier 2 tech support engineer for fiber optic networks and if we function like this people will get fire and customers will sue and cancel contracts left and right! un believeable!!!

This is the first apple product i ever own and it will be my last! i was thinking on a new computer and was going to go for their imac but after this experience with the bugs and tech support from hell NEVER AGAIN APPLE! LONG LIVE MICROSOFT!!! LOL

As for an mp3 player i will go to ebay and hunt down a new but discontinued SONY VAIO POCKET... i miss my baby!

- ericthai

April 17, 2005 12:53

5.0/5
If your researching to buy one of these, ignore all the negative feedback from people that probably don't even own one. They just jealous cause they can't afford the Cadillac of mp3 players. So it's not the best thing to view pictures on?!? I didn't buy it for that! I bought it to carry almost my entire mp3 collection (67 GB)around with me. Is there another mp3 player that has a 60 GB capacity? If there is I couldn't find one. Also be aware that this puppy doesn't cost $600 anymore. I got mine off of eBay for $407 with shipping. The best part about the color LCD for me is that my eyes are going bad with my age and this screen is much brighter and has more contrast so it's easier for me to read. With the extended battery life of 15 hrs I never have to worry about running out of juice. I've seen reviewers bash it for it's sound quality. I have about $2,500 into my car stereo and the sound is excellent. Once again, I have to think that anyone that writes a negative review on this unit doesn't own one. I've never been a fan of Apple, but compared to the Archos, Creative players I've had in the past. The iPod is second to none!

- friedfish

October 28, 2004 11:55
Spectacular
2.5/5

April 5, 2006 12:53
Spectacular
2.5/5
OK - I have owned MP3 players since they first came out, years ago. Most have been Creative and Treo players. Latest ones were Nomad Zens and Jukeboxes. I just finally got an IPOD photo. I know we get sick of comparing at times but I must say honestly - I am very surprised how must better sounding the Creative players are. The Nano Plus sounds better that the IPOD - deeper, richer bass and more powerful. The IPOD has a nice click wheel - pretty neat set up and I like the bright display. But the sound, my friends. If you are into quality SOUND, then the Creative players are miles ahead. I am a musician and an electrical hobbyist and I know good sound when I hear it.

- darkstar53

August 18, 2005 08:24

3.5/5
great MP3 player, you can watch slideshows and listen to music at the same time which is neat...the pirce is high for a "walkman". I wish that there was more of a selection of large cap. MP3 players....overall if you have the $$$ it's a very cool player. $432...is still a lot of cash for such a device. If it was a $100 cheaper it would be a **10** instead of an 8.

- Demon6ix