The *BEST* MP3 player yet.
Written: Oct 15 '02
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Pros: Amazing sound quality, 20GB storage, small, 20 MINUTE skip protection.
Cons: Useful for MP3 only, menu system not completely intuitive at first.
The Bottom Line: Excellent sound quality, battery life, and mass storage make this the best MP3 player around to date. Just don't use the software it comes with.
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| kweckstrom's Full Review: Apple iPod (20 GB, PC - M8741LL/A) MP3 Player |
There's some things that make perfect sense. There's other things that make no sense at all. It makes sense for Apple to make a PC-Compatible version of a unit that will sell well to people who favor the platform. It does NOT make sense for that same company to launch an ad campaign geared towards alienating them in nearly the same breath.
All marketing BS aside, Apple has decided to make a PC compatible version of the Ipod. This is a great idea, since they'll likely sell more PC versions of this little gem than anything else. But apple? We ain't switching :)
Rooting through the box, you'll find: The ipod, a firewire cable (6 pin to 6 pin), a 4 to 6 pin adapter (for cards/notebooks that only have a 4 pin connector), an AC adapter/charger (thank god), a set of headphones, a wired remote, a carry case with belt clip, some skimpy manuals, and a CD for the drivers/software.
This little gem is smaller than I expected. At roughly the size of a pack of 100's-type cigarettes, it's certainly pocket friendly. Weight-wise, it's not the lightest thing i've carried around at nearly 8oz. However, it certainly doesn't qualify as "heavy". The design is rather "minimalistic", which I like a great deal. You have 4 buttons, a jog "wheel" (which is really just a touch sensitive pad), and a center "ok/enter" button. The top of the unit has a firewire port, a headphone jack, and a "hold" button (that deactivates all the buttons until you turn it off, to prevent you from inadvertently pressing any of the other buttons).
The finish? Clear plastic covering a white face, and a Chrome backing. The chrome will scratch, rest assured. If you want to keep it nice and shiny, better use the case it comes with religiously. Me? I'll live with the scratches.
The software it comes with is horrid. I was never a fan of Musicmatch, so I won't go into any real detail here except to say it's one of the most sub-par pieces of software i've ever used. I decided to use a free piece of software called EphPod. Since this doesn't actually come with the ipod, I won't go into the process of transferring songs with it. I also won't go into Musicmatch because I've used it before and i know how god-awful it is.
Suffice it to say, if you use EphPod, you'll have your music on the ipod in no time provided you MAKE SURE you enable ID tag support. The Ipod RELIES on this information, particularly the "Genre", "Artist", "Album" and "Song title" fields. Transfer speed to the Ipod is "ok", with a rate of around 5.5MB/sec over my PC's firewire port. No USB here, only firewire. That's an important thing to remember. Also, if your machine doesn't have a 6 pin firewire port, you won't be able to charge your ipod without the included charger. A one-cable connection is highly desirable, but there's a downside. Since the ipod gets all its power from the firewire port, and there's no connector available to connect the ipod to both a 4pin firewire port and the AC Adapter, you're limited to either charging or transferring, not both. This doesn't apply if you have a 6 pin firewire port, since 6 pin firewire ports supply the requires 25v the ipod needs to charge.
Now, after you've done all that, you're ready for some tunes. Like its design, the menu system on the Ipaq is also very simple. You just rotate the jog wheel until you hit the menu item you want, then hit the center button. Doesn't get much easier than that. There's a variety of menu options, including stuff like the EQ. While the EQ has a TON of presets, I haven't found a way to make my own. I tend to leave it flat.
The menu system for picking your music was a little strange to me at first. I'm used to loading up a ton of songs on an mp3 player, and simply playing them back in the order I transferred them. The ipod is definitely different here. Since it uses ID3 tags for everything, it groups by genre, artist, album, composers or songs (songs being just an alphabetic listing of everything on the unit). At first I thought this was a pain, but it's actually pretty intuitive to me now. If you want your own specific order, you can make your own playlists for that purpose. In fact, the EphPod software is quite good for that, as it will let you import M3U files. However, Musicmatch or XPlay will not do this.
So... How's the sound quality?
In a word, Wow.
The supplied headphones are very high quality. Very low bass and very distinct highs are reproduced with the earbuds packaged with the Ipod. Not that there aren't better ones out there, it just seems that every manufacturer packages the worst possible headphones with their portable MP3 players. These are good enough to really show the flaws in your music, so no 128k MP3 rips. Use the highest quality VBR setting you can (such as the "extreme" preset in the LAME mp3 encoder).
The 60 milliwatt headphone amp in the ipod is also top notch. While the EQ is set flat, you can crank up the volume to painful levels without appreciable distortion. However, when using an EQ preset that increases bass, you might catch a little distortion (likely because the earbud drivers can't handle it). The high-powered headphone amp is one of the things that set the ipod apart from its competition. A lot of other portable mp3 players get by with as little as a 10mw headphone amp, which certainly will cause a ton of distortion when trying to drive a set of high quality phones.
Battery life is also excellent, which is suprising for a hard-disk based player. I've easily seen 8 hours of play during the first weekend i've owned it. Plus you can charge it to 80% in an hour, giving you plenty of time for a long commute with music. The rest of the way, it trickle-charges to 100% in 2 more hours.
Oh, yeah, the ipod also has contact management and calendar software on it. But.... why? I personally will never use it, but hey... it might be important to some.
So, to recap, the nice:
Nice minimalistic controls
Small size
20GB, means you don't have to be picky with what music you take with you
Excellent sound quality
Powerful headphone amp
High quality earbuds
Excellent battery life
Completeness of included accessories
Supports VBR encoding fully
And the naughty:
A chrome backing? That'll get scratched up in no time.
Song navigation takes a little getting used to
Can't charge and transfer at the same time with 4 pin firewire ports
Relies on ID3 tags, rip and encode accordingly.
And the downright ugly:
Horrid software. The free stuff is better (EphPod)
At $500, it's not cheap.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
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Epinions.com ID:
kweckstrom
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Member: Karl Weckstrom
Location: Emerson, NJ
Reviews written: 100
Trusted by: 99 members
About Me:
Voted "Most Likely to be Photographed as a Bigfoot Sighting" by his senior class.
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