Pros: Sleek, sexy, capacious hard drive, easy to use, great customer service.
Cons: Short battery life, a little delicate (like all hard drive devices)
The Bottom Line: It's worth every penny my wife spent :) I couldn't believe the incredible customer service. Buy some sort of armor (see iPod Armor review) or cover for it though.
xraydude888's Full Review: Apple iPod 3rd Generation White (30 GB) MP3 Player
Update: I got a couple of letters from Apple regarding the settlement of the class-action lawsuit brought against Apple. It seems like the batteries in the iPods are junk, which I discovered, only lasting a few hours instead of the 12 that was advertised. Of course for me to get a replacement battery or iPod, I need to find a receipt for somthing my wife purchased nearly 2 years ago. If Apple knew enough to send me a notice, why do I need to send them a receipt?
Finally, I am getting to writing a review about the 30GB iPod.
My wife bought this for me as a birthday present. Wow! What a present! Of course, I wasn't sure about getting an Apple device as I have been steadily moving into the Windows orbit. I don't think they make the 30GB device anymore. It's been replaced by the 40GB device.
It came in a cubish box. The box opened like a book and in the styrofoam insert sat the iPod. It was a lot smaller and sleeker than I thought. Also inside the craftily designed box was the iPod dock. The power connector, earphones, a wire remote, and the software CD. Instructions were pretty minimal, but since this is an Apple product, I figured the iPod to be pretty intuitive to use and it was. I charged the device by hooking up the power adapter via a cord to the dock and installed the software from the CD. I was rather disappointed that the software of choice was MusicMatch. It is one of the clunkiest programs available. After the iPod was charged, I connected the dock to my computer and wallah!, I started transferring music from my computer to the iPod. The firewire connection is pretty quick although I got some strange results on the menu of my iPod. However, I found out that was more the result of bad data on the ID3 tags of my mp3 files than with the iPod (make sure you don't have weird data on your ID3 tags). All you do is to drag the file from your hard drive to the iPod icon on MusicMatch. MusicMatch will show the songs on your iPod. You can also create playlists on MusicMatch. But it just seemed really clumsy. More on that later.
The new iPods are driven by a single integrated wheel with a center button and 4 menu buttons above it. Navigating the menu is very intuitive. You just scroll up and down with the wheel and make selections with the center button. Going back to the prior song or next song consists of 2 separate buttons. There is a menu button and a pause/play button. That's it.
I use the iPod mainly for commuting so I have an old cassette adapter for it. It degrades the sound quality somewhat. It's better than listening to the radio and I have a heck of a bigger selection of songs than I would if I were to bring CD's (and in a lot more compact package). The headphones are good enough for my purposes. I am not a strict audiophile. The wire remote connects can be plugged into the top of the iPod where the headphone jack is located. It has an input jack itself so that the headphones can be connected to the remote when the wire remote is plugged in.
The device is listed as 30GB but it is really something like 27. something GB. I can't imagine filling up the darn thing, even with mp3's encoded at 160 or higher bitrates. Do I really want every song I can think of or just the songs I like? If it is the latter, I can't imagine placing that much stuff on the iPod.
The downside... Battery life is kind of short. I think the most I got out of it was 6-7 hours. You can get a Belkin AA battery pack to extend your playing time but it seems a little bulky.
OK, so a little while ago, apparently "Hell Froze Over" and Steven Jobs unveiled iTunes for Windows. I quickly downloaded it. It seems a lot better than MusicMatch and I got rid of MusicMatch.
A little while ago, (see my review for the iPod Armor), I accidentally dropped my iPod onto the street. It dented it and some of the pixels on the LCD screen went bad. But it seemed to be working OK. I even took it on a trans-Pacific flight and it worked fine. I was the envy of people around me. I was using iTunes to transfer a couple of more files to the iPod when I got back and I heard a funny dreaded hard-drive spinning for naught noise. The computer froze and my iPod froze. Nothing happened for a while. What do I do now? I was walking around trying to figure something out when horrors, the iPod got accidentally disconnected when the warning said not to let it do so. I tried to restart the thing, but all I got was a cryptic warning.
I went on the Apple support webpage, submitted a repair request and within a day or two, got a box in the mail with a foam cut out for the iPod. It even came with the return shipping paid for!!! I sent the iPod back to the repair facility. I was pretty sure that Apple would assess some sort of fee since the damage was either from dropping the darn thing or from the accidental disconnect (which apparently corrupts the files or operating system). These events did not seemed covered by the warranty (if you read it).
I kept checking the Apple support site to see the status of the repair. For a couple of days, it wasn't even listed. I was sure that the Airborne Express clerk (high school teenager) messed up the delivery. However, one day, I checked and it said ominously that the status of my repair was "closed". No explanation. As I was puzzling over this statement, the doorbell rang. It was Airborne. A box identical to the one I sent of was delivered to me. I was a little apprehensive about opening it. I figured it was going to be my treasured but critically ill iPod sent back to me unfixed because of my error. When I opened the box, I was stunned. A brand-new, or at least well refurbished 30GB iPod!!! I can't tell which it is, new or refurbished. I haven't had time to use it yet, but I was so happy. It was like having a friend recover from a serious illness. That's customer service!!!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 500 Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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