Rating: 
Summary: Best MP3 player in the World.
Review: The Apple Ipod (5 GB, 10 GB, and 20 GB models) is the best MP3 player out on the market- no doubt about it. But why give only 4 stars out of 5? One reason, and its as simple as this, MONEY! The 10 GB Apple Ipod costs an amazing ... But in any case, if money is no object, then your best bet is w/ an Ipod. The Ipod offers amazing features, which some Mp3 players dont have, and fantastic quality. Basically your paying ... for the awesome quality which this little sliver box has to offer. Heres a list of the good and bad of the Apple Ipod:Pros:
+Sound Is Amazing- Crisp, Clean
+Its a Jukebox 10 GB (only though about 9.2 gb is useable)
+extras such as the calendar, contacts, and get this a game of PONG!
+Terrific Browsing- Automatically BY Artist, Album, etc.
+Customizable Playlists!
+Good Software (Windows- MusicMatch MAC-iTunes)
And the List goes on and on
+Many Different Equalizer Presets +Uses FireWire to transfer songs-fasT! (if you own a PC you will need to buy a firewire PCI card if your computer doesn't already have one) Cons:
-expensive!
-very easily scratched (the second you take out the Ipod I guarantee you that you will scratch it within 2 minutes)
-cannot be dropped! fragile! (this isnt for people who need an MP3 player while doing sports and physical activites) Beside these few minor problems, the Apple Ipod is just truly remarkable. You will not be disappointed if you buy one - its really a good investment.
Rating: 
Summary: simply put, the best designed MP3 player on the market
Review: I've had my Ipod for about 2 months, and it's working great, not a single glitch, nor a compatibility issue to complain about. However, there are some things to know. First, let me warn you, Musicmatch is not Itunes. If you know anything about the wonderful play list program that allows Imacs to hook up with Ipods, then prepare to be disappointed. Musicmatch will sync up your PC with the Ipod, but you can't do major syncs without first erasing everything on your Ipod and re-uploading all your songs in one swoop. That makes swapping the Ipod to and from different computers very difficult because if you want to add songs from more than one computer to the Ipod you have to do it manually. However, Musicmatch does allow you to set up playlists, a major function of the Ipod. Once your music is loaded, you can browse through your songs via playlists, song list, artist, genre, etc. And it's all done with the wonderful and effortless touch wheel in the center and the simple five-button interface. Simplicity is the key here, and boy does it work. Even Helen Keller could have figure out how to use this thing. Play time for the ipod is about 10 hours plus on a rechargeable battery that can be charged via the computer (depending on your firewire card) or external AC. The audio quality is some of the best I've heard on an MP3 player, especially when the MP3 quality is 128 or higher. As mentioned above, the Ipod DOES require a firewire port in order to sync with a computer. They're cheap, about $$$$ (Belkin makes a great 3 port IEEE 1394 Firewire card) but it is an added expense. If you have a laptop, the Ipod comes with a firewire to mini-firewire converter, which is usually the standard on laptops. Also, unfortunately, the Windows Ipod cannot play WMA files (direct CD rips or high quality Windows Media sound files). MP3 files only. There are features like Date/time/calendar/and contact list but to synchronize them with your computer is more painful than pleasant or worthwhile. And while Musicmatch isn't perfect, I've had no trouble with it. Although If you have Musicmatch 7.2 or higher, you might be slightly annoyed with having to go "backwards" to a lower version of Musicmatch, which as of yet has no updates. Also, it has the distinct feature of being one of the most expensive players on the market, beaten only by it's sister model, the 20 gig, at $$$ dollars. However, if it's the difference between buying the Delorian and the Diablo (and you can afford it), I'll take the Diablo any day. The Final Word: If you want the best, this is it, however the best comes at a price!
Rating:
Summary: Best There Is!!!
Review: Just got the 10-gig I-pod Friday (picked up on sale as Apple is dropping 10-gig in favor of "mini" and "15-gig"). All I can say is awesome. I never had Apple before and was skeptical. But all my fears were erased. I have a 6 month-old Compaq at home and had no problems getting the two to sync up. Literally "plug and play". Bonus is, if your Windows PC has a newer fire-wire port, it will even charge the I-pod while downloading music. I have about 250 songs (20 albums) on it right now, and using just over 2-gig. I read a lot about people having problems sync-ing their window-based PCs to I-pod. Based on my experience, I can only guess they are using older PCs (I have a pentium-4, 2.2, 256). One tip, if you're "ripping" CDs to put on your I-pod, be logged into the web. I-tunes will literally fill out all the song/track information for you (a little tid-bit I found by accident).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent all round product
Review: I have owner 3 MP3 players and the Apple IPOD is the best I have used. Here's why:
1. The biggest problem in the other players I have used (The Archos and a Samsung Yepp) is the file sorting system. With the Apple IPOD, file sorting is made easy - it's by artist, by album, by song, by genre or by composer.
2. It has rechargeable batteries built in which last pretty long - 10 hours by my reckoning. Other MP3 players use batteries which get over pretty quickly. This player saves you the hassle and expense.
3. It is lightweight - not bulky like one would expect of a 10 gb hard disk drive.
4. It can also be used as a hard disk drive, not just a media for storing music. You can put pretty much anything on it.
5. Lastly, it has loads of extras like a calendar, the ability for you to store contacts (all you need to do is export your contacts from Outlook as vcards and you're set), and even a game.
Trust me, this player is the best one out there. You WILL not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The best MP3 player hands down....
Review: After 6 months of owning an ipod, I am just as enamoured with it as I was the first day. I have over 700 songs on it and still have 6 gb free. I have digitized almost every piece of music I own. I regularly hook it up to my Harman Kardon home theatre system and the fidelity is incredible. The interface is intuitive and the touchpad is sleek. I have to give it to apple, they really do well with the details like the audio feedback (little clicking noise) from the touch pad and the equalizer settings. I would however recommend replacing the stock earbuds with some high quality headphones or else you're selling yourself short. I have found only two problems:
1) It tends to get scratched up pretty easily (solution: try using pda screen protectors or contact paper to protect the finish.)
2) Diminishing battery life. I have been experiencing a shortening of the charge life with my ipod. According to apple it is a firmware issue and not a problem with the battery. They have released a firmware update(1.2.6) that supposedly fixes this problem. (Just updated mine so I can't attest to whether it fixes the problem or not) Overall, If you're in the market for a high end portable digital audio player, why even waste your time with any other? Apple has produced an excellent player that outshines the competition on all fronts.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Hardware...Bad software
Review: First of all, let me say that I'm returning my ipod. Why? First the good things. 1. Extremely compact.
2. Extremely easy to use. Really don't need to read the manual. The touch sensitive scroll wheel works like a charm although it's a bit too sensitive.
3. Sound Quality is very good. Volume is more than adequate for most users. Maybe an equalizer would be good (Take a hint from Creative)
4. Fast startup time.
5. Good LCD display although when the contrast is increased,black vertical bars seem to appear and when the song title scrolls, the text is not very clear. Now the bad part. 1. [Pricey]... is a lot of money for a portable MP3 Player, but the price/storage is very attractive. Compare this to spending [less] for a top Sony MP3 player with 128MB Memory stick. Buy another memory stick and you've just spent about the price of a 10GB ipod which has 40 times the storage capacity. 2. Non removable battery. This may be a compromise done to acheive the incredible size of the ipod, but this has serious implications. In most electronics devices, the life of a battery is much shorter than most other components, so it's a fair assumption that your battery will be dead sooner than the other components in your ipod. Toshiba rates the life of the hard disk in the ipod as 5 years, but the battery will lose much of it's capacity in a period of 3 years. 3. The battery discharges on it's own after a few days even if the ipod hasn't been used. This might be a design flaw or a bug in the software. 4. The case of the ipod is very easily scratched and very fingerprint prone. You have to be very careful in handling the ipod if you want to preserve it's beauty. The mirrored back looks great but it's beauty is short lived. 5. The software included (Musicmatch Jukebox) is terrible. It's sad that Apple decided to include third party software instead of porting iTunes to Windows, because the hardware and software are light years apart. Too many problems with Jukebox to mention it here....Avoid it and use Ephpod...It's much better although you can't save your playlists in your PC with Ephpod. All in all, when I really think about it, I feel that I should wait till a better version comes out before I fork my hard earned money. Apple has done a great job but there is a lot of room for improvements and a step in the right direction would be to avoid Musicmatch Jukebox (Junkbox???).
Rating:
Summary: Apple's Seeds of Joy
Review: I take my iPod everywhere, I have had it since Christmas, it is the single most useful invention I have ever owned, I have my whole Hip-Hop collection on it. But a few weeks ago it said I only had .5 gb left and I only 800 songs on it, but after a quick reset and reload of songs (it took 5 minutes honest!) it was back to new. You should definately get a case for these, I have kept mine in a case for its whole life and it looks as good as new. Pros: Holds all but the biggest music collections, great quality in sound and product, long battery life, great software Cons: Occasionally crashes For all those people that say by a cheaper mp3 player I used to have the iRiver, and I through it out of my window 1 day because it was so terrible, trust me the ipod is the best designed and for the price you are paying you get more songs.
Rating:
Summary: Best There Is!!!
Review: Just got the 10-gig I-pod Friday (picked up on sale as Apple is dropping 10-gig in favor of "mini" and "15-gig"). All I can say is awesome. I never had Apple before and was skeptical. But all my fears were erased. I have a 6 month-old Compaq at home and had no problems getting the two to sync up. Literally "plug and play". Bonus is, if your Windows PC has a newer fire-wire port, it will even charge the I-pod while downloading music. I have about 250 songs (20 albums) on it right now, and using just over 2-gig. I read a lot about people having problems sync-ing their window-based PCs to I-pod. Based on my experience, I can only guess they are using older PCs (I have a pentium-4, 2.2, 256). One tip, if you're "ripping" CDs to put on your I-pod, be logged into the web. I-tunes will literally fill out all the song/track information for you (a little tid-bit I found by accident).
Rating: 
Summary: Nomad beats the Ipod by a Mile
Review: I have recently got an Ipod and I thought is was the best Mp3 player until I did a lot of looking around. The Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra kicks the Ipod so much. Pros:
1. Eax sound feature which is creatives sound card technoligy so it sounds a lot better
2. The 30gb Nomad cost $300 while the 10gb Ipod cost $400
3. built for windows. No firewire stuff.
4. better features and custmizing
5. no need to use musicmatch or anything just install software and you can put any song on it no matter where the location.
6. big screen with blue backlight.
7. Can replace rechargeable battery
8. Up to 60gb hard drive Cons:
1. A little bigger than the Ipod
Rating:
Summary: Yuck
Review: I bought one of the Windows Ipods when they first came out and have had nothing but trouble with the software for downloading music and books (Audible). Music and books would have gaps or be completly unplayable. I would advise looking at the user comments on Apples own web site before buying one of these.
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