The iPod is a Winner
Written: Mar 10 '02 (Updated May 12 '02)
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Pros: Firewire, iTunes sync, absolutely beautiful, easy to use, small
Cons: Price, no case, bad earbuds included, no equalizer
The Bottom Line: An excellent MP3 player that has some minor flaws, but otherwise this is a keeper. Don't wait on getting an iPod, it's well worth the money.
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| mookiekong's Full Review: Apple iPod classic 1st Generation 5 GB (MAC - M851... |
Apple iPod
Now that I’ve had my share of harddrive-based MP3 players, I can write a review of the iPod that compares it directly with my previous favorite HD-MP3 player. I’ve traveled many thousands of miles and listened to countless hours of music using my Archos Jukebox Recorder (6GB version). It performed flawlessly all through that, but now it’s sitting on my desk. Why? Because I got an iPod.
There’s no arguing that harddrive-based MP3 players are the future. Solid-state MP3 players still have a niche on the market, basically for those of who want music while they jog. The big limitation of the solid-state MP3 player is memory. The same goes with the new breed of MP3 CD players which, don’t get me wrong, are capacious. The MP3 CD player though is huge – even the 8mm ones.
First, let me say that though most people believe Apple’s iPod is strictly the domain of the Macintosh world, that’s not true. There is a piece of software that will let any Firewire-equiped PC get basic use out of the iPod – the piece of software is XPlay from MediaFour. The software currently does not synchronize the files and makes the iPod act only as an external harddrive. I’m not overly concerned about the PC compatibility of the iPod though. If you have a PC, skip the iPod and get yourself an Archos Recorder (available in 6GB, 10GB, and 20GB sizes).
Lets look at some of the specs of the iPod. This small package, truly about the size of a pack of cards, packs a 5GB harddrive. It has 32MB of RAM to buffer songs and a lithium polymer battery. It comes with some neat looking earbuds that can be easily discarded for something better. And the best inclusion of the iPod package is the Firewire port.
The 5GB harddrive inside the iPod is different from other devices that use harddrives. With other devices standard 2.5” harddrives are used. With the iPod, the harddrive is a PC-card type harddrive. What difference does this make? Size. The iPod is physically half as high as the Archos (which was, previous the smallest of the HD MP3 players). The iPod is also smaller in size as the Archos. Try to put the Archos in your pocket and you’ll have a hard time (especially with those blue bumpers). The iPod slides right into my pocket, no problems.
The 32MB of RAM that Apple loaded the iPod with really helps in two ways. First, the battery life. With the Archos the unit is limited to the the 2MB of cache on the harddrive. There is nothing else. This causes the harddrive to spin up many times during a song, and spinning up the harddrive is the most power-intensive process of the harddrive. With a 32MB RAM cache on the iPod it is able to put four or five songs into memory at once. This is a tremendous help. The iPod gets about 10 hours of play off one charge. I’ve used it without charging for a flight to New York from San Jose, a flight from New York to Arkansas, and then the flight from Arkansas back to San Jose. The thing is amazing. One thing that is great is that the battery meter actually works pretty accurately when compared to the misfiring meter on the Archos.
Whereas all other MP3 players use a USB connection to transfer songs, the iPod uses a Firewire connection. What’s the difference? Day and night. USB 1.x connection speeds are at best 1MB/sec connection. With the Archos I was able to get close to that speed when transferring songs. Firewire connection speeds are up to 50MB/sec connections. That’s right, that’s a 50 time speed increase. What took me close to three hours to fill 5GB onto my Archos took only 10 minutes on my iPod. Incredible.
The iPod user-interface consists of five buttons and a jog-dial. The interface is easily learned and makes the iPod a single-handed device. The user-interface of the software consists of hierarchical menus, which are naturally organized and easily navigated. No more organizing music by directories like on the Archos. Everything on the iPod is indexed and everything can be found by artist name, song name, or album name. With a spin of the jog wheel and a click of the center button you can be listening to the song of your choice. It’s that easy. It’s hard to explaining the user interface; it must be used in order to understand the pure simplicity of it.
On top of the iPod is a headphone jack, a Hold switch and a Firewire port. There is no power jack. The iPod charges when you plug the Firewire cable into the Macintosh that you’re using. It charges off the power on the Firewire bus. If you’re away from home, Apple has thrown in a nice device. It’s basically an adapter that you can plug into a wall socket, then you plug your Firewire cable directly into this adapter.
The iPod works hand-in-hand with iTunes 2.0. The two are built for each other and it shows. iTunes is already a great product, but when you add an iPod to it, it makes it an even greater tool. The iPod syncs with iTunes upon plug in and can be resynced at anytime with a menu item. You can sync all your songs and lists. There is also an option to sync only what you check. And then there’s an option to manually copy files over to the iPod. Keep in mind that the iPod is built for putting music on it, not taking it off. There are programs now that will let you pull songs from the iPod, but why? If you have two Macs in the house you’ll be left to manually copy songs over because you’ll not be able to sync to both machines. That’s a shame. The music that is encoded with iTunes 2.0 sounds great, it uses a modified version of the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder. It would be nice with a future revision of iTunes to let users chose between different MP3 encoders, such as the LAME encoder which produces some better sounding MP3s.
The positives of the iPod overshadow the negatives, but there are definite negatives about the iPod. First, for the price of the iPod currently one can go out and buy an Archos 20GB Jukebox and get four times the storage. The iPod is expensive, but I think the features of it are worth the price.
Second, there is no onboard equalizer on the iPod. This is a big oversight by Apple and I hope that they can fix this with a firmware upgrade. I want to change the way that the music sounds a bit sometimes and right now I can’t. Don’t get me wrong, the iPod is the best sounding unit I’ve ever heard, but sometimes I want some more thump in my music. The sound of the iPod is positively flat and natural. Unlike the Archos in which it always sounds somewhat muddled – even when it is set to play with a flat equalizer – the iPod is clear and sharp with the highs and pumps out some nice lows. (Update: With the 1.1 firmware there is now different equalizer settings for your music listening enjoyment! Thanks Apple!)
Third, where’s my case? There is no case included with the iPod. With a shiny beautiful looking toy as the iPod, there should be some sort of case that comes with it. The front is easily scratchable and the rear metal plate attracts finger-prints like mad. On the subject of accessories, the earbuds that come with the iPod do it no justice. Apple seems to push these Neodymium wonders. I think they sound like crap and never used them after I first tried them out. These earbuds highlights the mids and nothing else. Also, they are very uncomfortable to wear – a bit too large, even for my big ears. I switched to a pair of Sony white MDR-EX70LP earbuds, which give the iPod a great, balanced sound. The MDR-EX70LP is Sony’s only closed-air type earbuds. They block absolutely all outside sounds out.
The iPod acts like a standard Firewire harddrive if you wish to use some of the space that way. You can turn on this feature from inside of iTunes. I am not using this functionality, but I may do so soon so that I can backup some of my documents.
The iPod works in both MacOS 9.x and 10.1.x. I use it exclusively with MacOS X and it is wonderful. The iPod with my iBook (600Mhz) are a great pair.
If you own a Firewire-enabled Macintosh and want to take some of those tunes that you have stored away in iTunes with you, then the iPod is the perfect companion. The iPod is the absolute best harddrive based MP3 player on the market currently. Yes, there are others with more capacity and lower prices, but none are as beautiful, functionally, and easy to use as the iPod. None have the speed of the Firewire connection, and none can synchronize with iTunes. I highly recommend the iPod, even with its high price tag, it’s worth every penny.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 399
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mookiekong
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Location: San Jose, CA, USA
Reviews written: 68
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Current Mookie Obsession: Apple iPhone 8GB and Fedora 8.
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