Ipod, Don’t leave home without it!

If you are a frequent traveler, sunbather, exercise fanatic, student, driver, or just love to have YOUR music with you wherever you go then this is a must have item!

If you have toy envy of the person sitting next to you playing with their new laptop on the airplane then here is your sweet revenge. Pull out your new slimmer 10gig Ipod, put on your headphones, and watch as your neighbor eyes the coolest toy in the exit row. That said, if you are more cost conscious check out Ebay for the 2nd generation Ipod. You get more stuff and longer battery life, for less money. But remember, you won’t be the envy of everyone around you.

What you get:
For a list price or $299.00 you get the Ipod, Headphones, a firewire cable, and charger. I got an open box item at Best Buy for $265.00

The new unit comes with a lithium-ion battery that is rated for 8 hours of use. In reality you will most likely only get about 5 or 6 hours before you need to recharge. The previous model has a larger battery and does not have buttons than light up (which adds to the coolness of the newer unit). Unfortunately, the new backlit buttons and smaller battery come at a price in terms of battery life.

The 10 gig unit has the same basic firewire connection as previous models. You will probably need a firewire card if you are a pc user. Expect to pay an extra $45.00 for a PCI card. The 10 gig unit does not come with the docking cradle, it is optional and costs another $50.00 or so. In my opinion it probably is not worth the extra cost.

The New Ipod is much smaller and thinner than its predecessor. In fact, that what makes it so incredibly cool. The Ipod itself is about the same dimensions as a cassette tape case (remember those?). The front is an ivory white finish and the back is high gloss chrome. The chrome is very soft and scratches easily, a case is a must (expect to pay $30.00 or so for a nice case).

The good, the bad, and the ugly

OK here is the part where I get to rant and rave:
I love the new design. The sound, the size, the look, the soft touch sensitive controls, this is a very high-end piece of stereo equipment. My 10gb Ipod has no problem holding upwards of 2,000 songs. Some of this music is classical and the file sizes are much larger than pop music because of the length of the songs. I would say that the average pop song I have is about 4. megabytes whereas the classical songs can be more than 12 megabytes. Most of my music is recorded at 128 kbs but some is as high as 392kbs. Personally, with the new Ipod equalizer settings I can’t tell the difference.

Another Ipod feature I love is the fact that I can plug my Ipod in almost anywhere and the internall amp makes it sound great. In my car I have the Itrip FM transmitter it’s clear and easy to use. At my office I have a set of decent computer style speakers that just pug into the headphone jack and again, I have all my music. When I travel I have my headphones and well let’s just say the Ipod is in its element.

Many user complain about the Music Match software, personally I think it is one of the better MP3 player/rippers on the market. The Music Match playlist looks very similar to the Ipod playlist. One big problem of downloading music is that often the music file is mislabeled with the wrong artist information, or the incorrect genre, or maybe the wrong song name. Music Match has a really great feature called supertagging that allows the music to be properly matched-up to the correct artist detail. This makes archiving your music much easier.

The only real complaints I have about the Ipod is the chrome and battery life. I have a love hate relationship with the chrome back on my Ipod. It looks great, but it smudges and scratches so easily that when dirty it looks horrible. I guess a protective case is a must have item. As far as the battery goes, why didn’t Apple take into consideration the additional power requirements of the backlit buttons? The new Ipod has a smaller battery that is required to produce more power. This translates into less musical enjoyment between charges. Most users I have spoken to report 6 hours of listening pleasure, old Ipods get about 10 hours between charges. This is certainly not a deal breaker by any stretch, but hey for $300. Bucks I want all of my cake not just one piece.

All in all if you fit into the category of music lover this is a must have item.

Ipod, Don’t leave home without it!