Rating: 
Summary: As close to perfect as any digital device.
Review: Think of it. A 5 GB portable, FireWire hard drive the size of a pack of playing cards. Yep. You read it right, the iPod can be used as an ultraportable miniature hard drive that will hold almost 5 GB of data. You can even boot from it, if you own a Mac. At [the price], such a device is a steal.But, to top it off, add in free the following: The ability to plug in a pair of headphones and use it as a state of the art, awesome sounding, 10 hours of battery life, mp3 player that will hold about 1,000 songs. Add in the most user friendly controls and operating system in the business, a bright, back-lit LCD that lists all of your songs by artist, album, or song title, or playlists that you put together yourself, and you have the iPod. Oh, wait. It automatically syncs with iTunes on your Macintosh computer, and can transfer songs from your computer at a rate of about one CD every 10 seconds. You have to see it to believe. Do you need to have a Mac to use it? Sure, for now anyway. But what better excuse do you need to buy the best family computer on the planet--the iMac G4?
Rating: 
Summary: Apple gets it mostly right
Review: I approach the iPod from the perspective of someone who spends time with all sorts of different platforms; including Mac, PC and UNIX desktops. Thus, I feel somewhat exempt from the obvious bias most of the ardent Apple supporters are lavishing upon this little unit. I've recently acquired an iPod and have spent quite a bit of time with it of late. Don't get me wrong, this MP3 player/portable hard drive has some very, very nice features. It is small. It is sleek. It has a very large capacity. It has decent sound. But, most importantly to a lot of people, it says "Apple" on it. Does saying "Apple" on it automatically propel it to the heights of an automatic 5 star product? Sometimes that's true, but it's definitely not in this case. The iPod can't be evaluated just as an Apple peripheral, it has to be evaluated solely as an MP3 player and that's where it is lacking. Though a lot of people have been praising the user interface for this product, I didn't find it immediately intuitive. I find it a somewhat clumsy process to do some very basic things. Style definitely preceded usability issues here. Without acquiring 3rd party software, it's not PC compatible. Also, the iPod has no reliability track record. It does look and feel as though it'd be easy to break, however. I'm shocked it came with no protective case, whatsoever. The front is easy to scratch, so be careful. In summary, the iPod is an excellent MP3 player with some very major drawbacks from a platform independent perspective. However, I would have to recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: If you have only access to a Windows, then don't even bother
Review: I'm actually giving this Apple iPod four and a half stars, and that is only because you can't download songs and stuff from a Windows computer, which is what I have. My friend has this Apple iPod and she's always listening to it--she showed me how to download songs on it and such. And I've even listened to some of the songs she's downloaded onto this iPod. It is actually quit a good little gadget. You can download over 1000 songs on this little thing, and it's so small you can fit it inside your pocket. The earbuds that it comes with have great sound capability. The songs come out clear and it does not skip. Another con about this Apple iPod is that you cannot listen to your CDs on this or listen to the radio...it is only for downloading MP3 songs. A pro is that it keeps your songs well organized, which is good, especially if you are the kind of person who is usually disorganized or whatever. It doesn't take a very long time to download the songs, too. It is actually pretty fast when downloading the songs. So once again, if you do not have an Apple Mac, then this iPod is obviously useless to you. But if you have an Apple Mac, then this is THE MP3 player to buy! Heck--if I had a Mac computer, I'd buy this thing, too!
Rating:
Summary: buy 3 or bust
Review: the best part of the iPod is the elegant interface and the famous Apple design. This sounds exaggerated, but it's the truth, the iPod will change your life. no other Mp3 player has the combined looks, function, and je ne sais quois. and check out iPodlounge.com for all the add-ons.
Rating:
Summary: This thing ROCKS!!!
Review: Not only is this thing functional,but it has a cool design and an easy to use interface. Can't ask for anything else.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing technology but not without its flaws..
Review: Ill admit, I really liked this player from the moment i held it in my hands. It has some great advantages over all the other MP3 players on the market with the Firewire, great battery technology, easy to naviagate and great display, and small light size, but this player has some major problems. First off altought the size is decent at 5 gigs worth of storage, people with large MP3 collections might have a hard time picking what they want.. my brother has troubles figuring out what he wants to keep and delete on his Archos 6 gig, so a 20 gig would have been nice. Secondly, altough Im not sure about how substantiated this claim is, but i read it in a magazine before the player came out that you can not pull songs off the player to your hard drive. This makes it useless as a back-up hard drive and I also heard that the player only works with one specific version of the software so you cant load songs up from other computers. With the Archos you just need to load some drivers in a few seconds and it shows up as another hard drive. Altough some people out there are probably more cautious than me, I accidntaly dropped my Archos 20 gig from about 5 feet off the ground and it hit pretty hard, thanks to the impact absorbant rubber on the sides the player was back to perfect working conditions with just by turning it off and on again. This would surely cause unimaginable doom to the iPod and many hours of grieving over the loss of a 400 dollar player, which is another problem the cost. Theres no equalizer on the thing which is definatly a down, and I dont know if the iPod has this but the Archos has a headphones out and line out, line out reduces the amount of distortion if your hooking it up to your car stereo or some other outside source. I guess which MP3 player you want depends on the person, the Archos itself has some major set backs too, like a minimal display, the battery life isnt as good and takes longer to charge, and it doesn't come with best buttons. I personaly find it easier to live with the Archos, but you might want to hold off till some other company comes out with a player that fixes the probelm that both of them have. (for me the Nomad is out of the question because its huge compared to the Ipod and gets a pathetic 3 hr battery life)
Rating:
Summary: iPod Awesome MP3 Player for Mac AND PC
Review: This is a totally amazing product! Total integration of engineering & art / Man & Machine.
CLARIFICATION TO USERS & EDITOR: iPOD WORKS ON MACS AND WINDOWS XP. Go ... & order Xplay software & the iPOD syncs with WINXP! I use Macs & PC's & this is totally awesome.
[the reason why iPOD didnot work with XP originally has to do with proprietary WIN XP MS Audio format, instead of industry standards of MP3. This was MS problem NOT Apple's]
Mediafour programmers solved the problem & WOW! iPOD for WINXP & MACS!
Have fun!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic! The best, Top of the range
Review: I have nothing but good things to say about the iPod. Its amazingly easy to use, super fast, has a 10 hour battery life (and thats good) and can copy a whole cd in about 8 seconds! Firewire is amazing, the headphones are too, this is definetly a best buy, for anyone, (did I mention it has brilliant multi-lingual support) It is the coolest gadget I have ever held. I encourage everyone to get one!
Rating:
Summary: I Wanna Dance!
Review: So what if Apple's marketing department sucked me in with that prophetic television ad featuring the guy dancing his heart out via the snappy new iPod? Short version? I love it. You'll love it too. Buy one. Be happy. Rejoice. Long version: Incredible 1000 song, 5GB capacity. Uber-cool body design. Multi-functional (boot disk!). Ease of use. Mac OS X 10.1 compatibility out of the box. Outstanding sound. Makes a Windows user a little more envious than they already secretly are. Conversation piece to the nth degree. Only con... which I'll neatly morph into a positive... the lack of an equalizer... but the boards I've been reading proclaim that Mac is at work on a software download that'll add a graphic equalizer functionality. Sweet! Sure, the stainless-steel back is easily smudged, and the clear cover is just begging for scratches. I've shopped around and found that the ... Essentials Bundle provides the most bang for your buck; their leather case/car charger/beltclip ensure high geek-factor while looking darned spiffy, and that little investment stays well-protected. Check 'em out. Amazon, give us a 6th star. The iPod deserves it.
Rating:
Summary: If you can afford it - GET IT
Review: Apple has done it again - this is the best that current technology can be. It is easy to use - beautifully built - sturdy - and has fantastic sound. You may want to get different headphones as the ones that come with it are a little large for comfort. But don't let this stop you - get it!! You will love it.
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