Beauty is only bezel deep
Written: Jul 30 '04 (Updated Aug 13 '04)
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Pros: Great sound, status symbol, fast FireWire transmission speeds.
Cons: iTunes is hopeless, USB2.0 is faster, can't match up to the competition, etc.
The Bottom Line: Don't buy the iPod before investigating the superior competition.
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| sanjayschrapel's Full Review: Apple iPod 3rd Generation White (15 GB) MP3 Player |
As I'm sure you would know if you have read my other epinions, I'm quite the techno-geek. I’ll buy anything that flashes, connects to the internet, plays music and washes the dishes. I've bought MD recorders, many mobile phones, PDAs, even computers, which I promptly sell when I lose interest in them. Certain things, such as my current computer and n-gage, I will never sell because they are of such a high calibre. But most things that I have bought go pretty quickly, and the iPod is certainly one of those things.
Let me give you some background information. Earlier this year, my rich friend Erwin bought himself a shiny new iPod, 15 gig 3rd generation. Of course he had no idea what that meant, other than it gave him instant status and everyone at school would crowd around him whenever he pulled it out. He had competition though, with me and my Sony Clié NX-70V, Nokia 3650 and Nokia n-gage. All the nerds were torn as to whom to go to and gawk at! Obviously Erwin couldn’t handle this, so he elected to trade his fancy shiny iPod, glazed in contact, for my not-so-new Clié. Let’s see, his iPod was a month old, my PDA was about 2 years old. But I didn’t care that my PDA could do everything his stupid iPod could do and a stack more. Could he edit Word documents? Play 3D games? Did I care?
Now I hated the iPod with a passion. I had a 512mb CF card in my Clié, and it played my MP3s like a total charm. The iPod was overpriced, underfeatured, looked dodgy, and was made by APPLE. Could it get any worse?? Later I shall compare the iPod to the competition and prove that consumers really are stupid. But that’s my reasons as to why I acquired an iPod, I would never have bought one of these POS units to begin with.
So why did I trade my beautiful PDA for this piece of white useless junk? Because I wanted a change. I love new technology, even if it’s poorly implemented. I was sick of my PDA, I wanted something different, and something that would make heads turn. The Clié made people think I was a geek, the iPod made people think I was a yuppie. Which did I prefer?
I was very excited when I brought this item home though; I opened the box and everything, to find the POS software, the iPod with fingerprints all over it, and a FIREWIRE CABLE. To this I said “ARGH!!!” My laptop didn’t have IEEE1394 on it! So off I went to Geciman and bought a USB2.0/IEEE1394 Combo PCMCIA card. It hadn’t even been released in Australia yet, good ol’ eBay :-) and that cost me $50AU. Anyway, after getting that, and a nice exo3 xskn in frogger colour, I plugged everything in, installed the software. First quirk: iTunes really sucks. If you think OpenMG Jukebox sucks (the software that comes with Sony NetMD devices), you haven’t used this piece of flying junk. I had a DVD full of mp3s that I wanted to copy over to the iPod. iTunes had no way that I could do this. If I highlighted all the files on the DVD and chose Open With > iTunes, it would only play the first file I selected. SO ANNOYING! And absolutely hopeless if I wanted to transfer 3000 songs over. Not only that, but iTunes synchronised your ‘pod with the mp3 database on the computer every time you connected the damn thing. So I take the iPod to a friend’s place, plug it in, windows XP automatically recognises it as an external hard disk, and I copy some divX files to it. To do this, I went to the iPod_Control folder on the iPod and deleted some of my songs, to free up the space. I get home, plug the white brick in, and iTunes pops up, deleting all the movies I put on there and putting all my mp3s back on. I almost cried when i found out what iTunes did. When I put a new mp3 on my hard disk that doesn’t mean that I want it on the iPod, but iTunes thinks that’s the case. Just something to further my hatred for APPLE, trying to make software that thinks for you.
Solution: www.ephpod.com. Absolute legends these people are, they created EphPod software to interface with the iPod. I wasn't oppressed by the awful Mac OS X design. I could copy music from the DVD to the iPod; I could copy music from the iPod to my hard disk. TAKE THAT RIAA! I recommend this to anyone who uses Windows and suffers the misfortune of owning an iPod. Mac users, well it's your own fault that you use such a niche platform in the first place.
On the topic of supporting different music filetypes, the iPod only recognised 3/4 of my collection. Why? because it only supports MP3, not WMA, not OGG, only MP3. The bloated, outdated form of music compression. AAC is another useless "feature", its awkward to convert 3000 songs to AAC only to find out that they only play in the worst media player ever designed for windows (yes, worse than WinAmp3!) Even if it may provide superior sound capability and a more compact size than MP3, i wont be using a format that nobody recognises. Most companies, it seems, would rather AAC did not exist.
Okay, so we get my music copied to the iPod. Mission completed. Now to listen to the thing, so I turn it on, everything’s nice so far. Nice white backlight, easy to use menu system, and I was hooked on the circle navigation system. The device sorted my music by their perfectly-kept ID3 tags, so I could browse by Album, artist, song, even Composer! Very easy to navigate too, the big button in the middle selects the highlighted option on the screen, and the Menu button goes back in the menu hierarchy. Also, the sound emitted is excellent. Though the original headphones suck, like the rest of the device, using a pair of Sony MDR-G73L headphones, the quality was impeccable. No complaints there.
In terms of looks, I really don’t like it. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t appeal to me. The whole mirror on the back of a $500 device irks me. Scratches and marks galore. Good thing I had the exo3 xskn, because otherwise my iPod would have been looking worse for wear after about a week of light use.
Battery life is another thing that astounds me. www.ipodsdirtysecret.com may not be entirely true, but to replace the battery after two years involves prying the device with a screwdriver. Not so appealing, eh? If I just set it to play, the iPod may last about 7 hours. Pretty poor, because my Sony MZN-505 runs for over 30 hours of straight playback, from one AA battery. Once at a party, I tried DJing with the iPod, and this reduced the battery life to an absolutely insulting hour. Why? Because I took requests, I was always navigating through the menus. At a bare minimum, any mp3 device should last 7 hours of me navigating to find the next song every 3 minutes. Thumbs down here, too. Even with 5 gigs of mp3s, I don’t want to just play them through; I want to pick and choose. Doing this means I can’t even get a bus-trip worth of music on one charge. What’s the point?
I sold my iPod about 3 weeks after acquiring it. I am considering buying the iRiver iHP-120, which absolutely kills the iPod. I’m sorry to say, but everyone who says that the “wannabe” hard disk based mp3 players are fish out of water while the iPod is around, is blatantly wrong.
Let’s look at what the iRiver has over the iPod: USB2.0 support out of the box, supports WMA and OGG, can support more formats through firmware upgrades, Better looking unit with no stupid mirror to get scratched (far superior durability). IT COMES WITH AN LCD REMOTE :-O unlike the 15 gig iPod, where buying a little remote with no use whatsoever costs $70. Its menus are nicer to navigate. The joystick navigation is more natural than swinging your thumb around in a circle for 5 minutes to scroll through 3000 song titles. Drag-and-drop mp3 capabilities… THAT’S RIGHT folks; just copy your My Music folder to the removable drive that pops up with no drivers under the glorious Windows XP. And if you put movies, documents and software on it, there is no crappy software designed to pop up and reverse all your hard work.
The iRiver iHP-120 with 20 GB capacity is the clear victor, and if anyone can’t see that, then they have serious issues. Just because the iPod may look appealing doesn’t mean that it’s any good! Candy bar wrapping means nothing, because we all know that beauty is only bezel deep. And the player spends its time in your pocket, so you aren’t showing off its beauty anyway. The iPod appears to be the pinnacle of vanity.
Oh and for comparison’s sake, the iPod 15 gig costs $450, and the iRiver iHP-120 costs $500. $50 more for a FAR superior unit. A little investment goes a long way, where frustration and happiness are involved. I’m not saying that you should disregard the iPod if you’re buying a hard-disk based player; but consider the other options which are all better value. Creative, iRiver and Philips all make viable, superior alternatives to the iPod, which only gets a good rating due to the number of iPod loyalists out there who had one since the first generation. Sure, they were revolutionary back then, but not anymore.
PS: All currencies are in AUS$. I suggest you whip out that currency converter!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 450AU
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies
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Epinions.com ID:
sanjayschrapel
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Member: Sanjay Schrapel
Location: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
There just ain't enough space here
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