I’ll admit it. For the longest time, I didn’t want to go near an ipod. I didn’t like the way they looked, for one thing. And they were becoming so ubiquitous, a status symbol among kids it has been said, the latest rage, the Walkman of the early 21st century. Surely something so popular had to have something wrong with it?

Actually, the main reason I shied away from an ipod for so long was the compatibility issue. I was already using Musicmatch Jukebox as my default MP3 player, and buying song downloads from them and Real Audio. Both sell their wares in the WMA format, which is not compatible with itunes and the ipod. Oh sure, you can get around this by burning the tracks to CD, then ripping them to an mp3 or itunes compatible file. But that’s a big hassle.

And vice versa. itunes downloads are only compatible with your ipod, and won’t play on a lot of other portable digital music players. This is a real pain in the you know what, and something the industry really needs to work on. Despite all this, I ended up buying an ipod mini, after a bad experience with a Philips Go Gear and an RCA Lyra. And now that I’ve had my ipod for a few months, I have to say that I love it. Here’s why.

Setup
Setting up my ipod was extremely easy. Installing the included itunes software was the first step, and when that was done it ran a check on my computer for all compatible music files. MP3s will load and play on your ipod, at least most of them anyway. You can rip music from CDs or buy tracks from the itunes store for 99 cents each. Either will be in the m4p (mpeg4) format, incompatible with most other players.

Itunes will allow you to load selected tracks from your entire library onto your player, or you can simply synchronize and copy your entire library on the player. My ipod mini has 4 gigabytes of space, and after about three months of use I still only have about 1.5GB of music on it.

The ipod mini connects to your computer via a USB 2.0 interface. This unique arrangement not only allows for lightning fast music transfers, but also serves to charge your ipod’s battery. This is a vast improvement over other players I tried that had slow transfers and required bulky AC converters.

Use and Features
Once I had loaded my ipod with enough music to last me a while, I was off and running. The player is intuitive to use and I figured it out on the fly without having to read a long manual. Guys hate that sort of thing, dontchaknow. The player has basic controls on the exterior, including forward and reverse track browsing, play, pause, and a “hold” feature that will lock any buttons from being used.

A “click wheel” allows you to quickly browse through your entire library of music, and also controls volume depending where you are at in the menu. A push button in the center of the click wheel allows you to play a track or select a menu option.

The basic Menu flows as follows:

Music
Clicking on Music allows you to browse by the following criteria:

Playlists-these can be created on your itunes software and loaded onto the player. This allows you to listen to pre-selected tracks in an order you choose. (This is also available from the main menu).

Artists organizes your music by, well, artist. (This is also available from the main menu).

Albums does the same by album.

Songs displays all tracks alphabetically by track name. This is the way I usually sort through my music. (This is also available from the main menu).

Additional classifications:

Podcasts

Genres

Composers

Audiobooks

It’s important to remember that your classifications are only as good as your track information.

Extras

Clock Now you can leave your watch at home.

Calendar and Notes are self explanatory and set from your PC.

Games are included too. Brick, Music Quiz, Solitaire, Parachute. The Music Quiz game is not a video game like the others, but is the most fun. The ipod will play a segment from a track on your player and offer four choices for the title. One by one, the choices vanish until you’re left with the correct one. The sooner you choose the correct title, the more points you get.

Settings
You can choose Language, equalizer selection, shuffle (also available from the main menu), repeat, backlight timer (also available from the main menu). The latter will greatly impact your battery time, so choose it carefully.

That’s most of the menu, in a nutshell.

Display
The LCD display is clear and easy to see. It requires minimal light, but you do have the backlight for low light situations. While a song is playing, you will see song track information (title, artist), track number vs. total number of tracks, total track time, and time remaining. The battery indicator displays at all times the player is operating.

Headphones included with the unit are of the ear bud type. They sound very good, but they don’t stay in your ears very well. They’re constantly falling out while I’m walking or jogging.

Sound The ipod sounds great, with very good volume levels and plenty of bass and treble with the aforementioned headphones.

Battery Time a “quick charge” of an hour will give you four hours of playing time, or so they say. I will often charge it for several hours; the player will tell you when it is fully charged. Supposedly you get ten hours of playing time when fully charged (although the light will detract from that). I don’t really get that much, but I do get six or seven, which is plenty for my use.

Durability The ipod mini is built like a tank. It feels hefty and will doubtless last a long time. I use it while walking and jogging, and it easily survives my use, something previous hard drive players could not do. A plastic clip is included to attach it to your belt, which should keep you from dropping it-and extend the life of the product.

Accessories
Because the ipod is so ubiquitous, you can buy tons of accessories for it. Everything from carry-cases to speakers to USB docks and FM transmitters.

Tech Support and Warranty
While the quality of tech support seems good when I had a problem, but I was distressed to learn you only get one tech support call in your first ninety days of use. After that, you have to pay, or yell at them loudly. The unit is covered by a full one year warranty.

The only problem I have had with the ipod was when it somehow deauthorized all of my purchased music, and would not play it. They were pretty good about telling me how to fix that, but if I have another issue I may have to pay.

Overall
Yeah, I resisted buying an ipod for a long time. But I’m so glad I finally did. It goes with me everywhere, and it’s one of the best little gadgets I’ve ever bought. So learn from my example. If you’re in the market for a digital music player, get yourself an ipod, and save yourself the trouble of fooling around with anything else.






Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 199.00
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection