Rating: 
Summary: The Best Personal Digital Music Player Available!
Review: From opening the iPod to setting it up to listening to music, it all was one smooth experience. I was a bit worried about windows compatibility because other reviewers mentioned something about that, but as soon as I plugged it in to my Dell laptop it was instantly recognised and synchronized with iTunes. It took only about 1 or 2 minutes to transfer over 1 GB worth of music, downloading at about 2 songs/second. The touch wheel/button interface is the best and easiest of all mp3 players. The amazing thing is how it can store 10 GB in such a small size. Most other players that hold that much are big and clunky. You could easily find an mp3 player much smaller and lighter than this, but they lack many features and can only store 128-256 MB worth of music. Thats like 4 or 5 CD's as opposed to 40 or 50 CD's that a 10 GB iPod can hold. It also looks much nicer than any other mp3 player i've seen. The only small inconvienience with this iPod is the back which scratches easily and get's dirty with fingerprints. Other than that it's just about perfect.
Rating:
Summary: A review from a Mac user
Review: Just picked up the 10GB Ipod, and I have to say, while I rarely give the highest review to an item, this one seems deserving. Here's my bias, I am a mac owner, having switched over from a PC last year in order to do extensive multimedia work. The Ipod purchase is strictly a pleasure purchase.Installation was beyond easy. Since Itunes 4.2 was already on my system, it was literally a matter of plugging the Ipod into a firewire port. That's it. The unit turned itself on and began synching. The funny thing was that while I was looking in the instruction manual to see what I should do next, I looked up and saw that the Ipod had already synched with my Itunes and now my 250 songs, six audiobooks from audible.com and about half a dozen Fresh Air's from the audible subscription were already on the Ipod. Oh, and all my playlists too. It probably took about thirty or forty seconds. Frankly, I couldn't care less about the design. I guess it looks nice, but, I mean, it stays in your pocket anyway. But for people who weigh the importance of these things, I suppose it's pretty. What matters is the engineering of it, which is superb. It has that solid, well built feel about it - if you're the kind of person who attaches importance to how solid a car door feels when you close it, you'll appreciate the Ipod as well. The controls are easy to navigate, and extremely touch sensitive. You'll find yourself using the lock button a lot if the Ipod goes in a pocket. As I said, I'm a Mac user, so ease of use isn't really an issue, but I feel compelled to add a little something about the USB/firewire issue PC users have talked about. It does in fact appear that Apple is not playing fair with the lack of a firewire/USB adaptor. When you look at the box, if you read it very carefully - and we're talking about footnoted text, so it's even smaller than the already very small text outlining system requirements - it says that a USB 2.0 cable is not included. OK, fair enough. What it does not say is that even if you have that cable, you need the firewire/USB adapter. What that means is that ven if you read all the fine print, you will not have what you need to connect to a USB system. While I find it amusing that anyone with a $400 computer would expect a $400 state of the art accessory to be backwards compatible, this issue seems somewhat deceptive on Apple's part. They should include the adapter in the box, or they should clearly say on the box that not only is a USB 2.0 cable required, but an adapter as well. Bottom line: if you're a Mac user, you'll love this machine right out of the box. If you're a PC user, you'll need to take that extra step (but hey, don't you always have to take that extra step with a PC? Just kidding) and you'll enjoy this machine.
Rating: 
Summary: PC users beware!!!
Review: I can see how Apple enthusiasts love this product, but PC users should beware for several reasons: 1) The USB cable is not included with the iPod. So tack on another $20-$25 for that. This makes it ***extremely*** non-cost competitive with the Dell product. However, I will admit, this is a cool product with a cool design and small form factor, so if that's important to you it might be worth the extra cost. 2) When you rip the CD's you own into iTunes, the default file format is AAC. This is a huge problem if you then want to burn CDs of your music and play in a CD/MP3 player. Most players will play MP3s, but not AACs. You can convert from AAC to MP3, but you lose audio quality. So, change the default to MP3 if you want to burn and play in a CD/MP3 player. Otherwise, like me, you'll have to re-rip all your CDs. This extremely annoyed me. 3) Beware the feature where you can have your name engraved. If you do so, you cannot return the product. Also, I've heard Apple only gives 10 days to return the product (Amazon may provide more), so watch out for that. 4) The battery is awful. I charge it, and after it says fully charged, I take it out and it shows as only halfway charged! It seems a lot of other folks have had problems with the battery as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Good MP3
Review: This is a great MP3 player, but th packaging should include more. I own an Emachines computer with two High-Speed USB ports. To connect the iPod, I had to go out and buy the Docking Station also. I would recommend buying this, but make sure that you also buy the Docking Station if you plan to connect it to a PC.
Rating:
Summary: Apple's iPod: Continuing Apple's Legacy
Review: Apple certainly makes attractive products. With ease of use and stunning design, the iPod is no exception. After comparing many possible candidates (iRiver iHP-120, Dell DJ 15, Rio Karma), the size, design, and ease of use leaned me towards the iPod. Great! I purchase it at the Apple Store (sorry, Amazon, but I got it for $269 with an edu. discount). What do I think of it? The ease of use is remarkable. It's so damn simple, you could use it blindfolded! It's easily the most intuitive and exiting consumer electronic I have ever used. No question, if you don't need the trouble, the iPod is the player (the other players I previously mentioned are not nearly as easy to use as this iPod). The design is, as anyone will tell you, stunning. You cannot deny it -- the iPod has become a fashion accessory. I can control it with a single hand, and it feels so good. Unlike the iRiver, Dell, and Rio, the iPod is super-slim, making it very pocket-friendly (Try putting a Creative Nomad Zen in your pocket). The sound quality is quite impressive. I turned of the EQ, however, as I found it pretty useless. Using the stock headphones, the sound I got was pretty clear and resembled the original CDs (I use legally ripped songs from CDs as 128 Kbps AAC files). I plan to nbuy new headphones, but this is a good temporary. Using iTunes, like using the iPod, is the simplest of things. Just hook up the iPod and iTunes syncs with it. It is truly amazing. No problem at all. Auto-Sync took a genius. And speed was great. I used USB 2.0 (My computer lacks FireWire) and achieved 10-12 MBps speeds when transferring. That is about a song a second. The one pitfall I have seen is battery life, which I have seen range. I have yet to completely discharge the battery, but it looks like it lasts about 7 and a half hours, which isn't too bad at all, and is much more than I need (usually). Final verdict: Many digital audio players may boast about having this, and having that, but for a completely painless and downright fun experience, buy the Apple iPod.
Rating:
Summary: This is so cool!
Review: This thing is the best portable music player I have ever seen. The sound is incredible and it's great how it synchronizes automatically when you connect to the computer. It is great! Works best with iTunes.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING!
Review: I'll try to make this quick. I am 15 years old and I know a lot about these things. I asked for one for xmas, but my mom bought me a different one. I returned it and decided to try out the iPod. I opened the box..only to find out that in order to run it on USB, I needed a connector. No problem I thought, I would order one online...but many companies were sold out. I finally found it and ordered over night delivery. I have Windows XP, and was worried it wasn't going to work. I installed iTunes and found that it was the easiest software to use. I was so amazed. Within a half and hour I had 1,000 songs up and running. The design is incredible and so easy to use. I love the "touch" buttons. Another feature is the calender and games. You can also read Microsoft Word documents right off of it. For the money...you get a great deal. I HIGHLY recommend this MP3 player over anyone, and I have had 7 MP3 players in my life. This one is truly amazing. If you have any questions about it please ask me at nickmuk@excite.com or over AOL Instant Messenger Nick Mukhtar. I truly want to help you guys out in deciding what to get!!!
Rating:
Summary: IT's JUST AS DAZZLING ON WINDOWS
Review: I'd like to put a stop to the reviews that say the iPod works badly on Windows. I just recieved a 10 giggy for X-mas. I have a windows XP and I installed iTunes onto it. In couple hours I had my CD collection on it. It did take me a while to figure out but still it does work on Windows if you install iTunes-so do what they reccomend and it should work.
Rating: 
Summary: user-HOSTILE iPod support for XP!
Review: WARNING! If you have ANY problem with your iPod after initially installing on a Windows XP box you will be in very deep trouble. Customer support is comfortable with telling you that details explicitly stated as supported in the user manual (access through a proxy, for example) are simply not supported. User support was overtly nasty to me, literally laughing over the phone at me, when the iPod would not connect to a second user (my own actual account as opposed to the administrator account I'd used to set up the iPod/iTunes connection in the first place). They refused to address the problem altogether stating that their support was strictly limited to getting it to work at all, and that it did work as far as they were concerned.
I have had several other smaller issues (application not openning up and not closing properly) and there is no support whatsoever and, worse, a snide, condescending attitude from customer support.
Rating:
Summary: Installed without a hitch on Windows XP
Review: Being a Windows user, it was with some trepidation that I asked for the iPod for Xmas. I read a number of rather negative comments regarding the iPod and Windows (strange bed partners, eh?) But, I really liked the size of the unit and its capacity, so I went ahead and requested it from Santa (a pretty sure thing, "Santa" being my wife and all.) Maybe I was born under a lucky star or something, but I had my 7.6 gigs of music loaded from my Windows XP laptop to my iPod in less than 2 hours. About the only real issue I had was getting MusicMatch to "see" the iPod. Although I like MusicMatch, I'm not married to it so I decided to try iTunes for Windows before attempting to figure out why MusicMatch wasn't working. The product installed quickly, automatically found my music, and hooked up with the iPod with no problems. I did have to recreate my Playlists so I suppose someone with a lot of them might try harder to stick with MusicMatch. My laptop does have a firewire port so I did not have to buy any extra cables. iPod came with a firewire cable (6 pin) and a converter plug for 4 pin firewire (which is what I have). Perhaps that's why MusicMatch couldn't see the iPod...it was hanging off the firewire port. Other reviews mentioned the iPod battery power draining quickly when downloading music from the PC. Ditto for me. You'll want a fully charged iPod before starting your download. I don't care much for the headphones provided with the iPod. The music comes through clear enough but I find them to be physically awkward to use. The headhphone jack is standard, so I've continued to use my "old" headphones. All in all I'd have to give the iPod the full 5 stars. It was easy to install, easy to load up with music, and I find the quality of the sound to be first rate. The controls, although rather touchy, are intuitive and easily mastered. They say the best things come in small packages; in this case I couldn't agree more!
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