iPod – terrible quality, overpriced

About 19 months ago my 17 year old daughter asked for an iPod, and I bought her one that cost $200-300. About 14 months after purchase it died. She took it to the Apple store, but they could do nothing. They told her to go home, make an appointment with a “genius” at that same store, and come back. She did so, but the “genius” confirmed that it was just plain dead. They offered her 10% off the purchase of a new iPod.

She asked to get the new Nano, saying it was of much greater reliability because, unlike her older model, it had no moving parts. I was quite skeptical, but she pays a lot of attention to the “cool” factor and really needed a portable music player, so I caved in. I bought the 8GB Nano for $200 at Amazon, since the savings on sales tax pretty much offset the 10% discount I could have gotten by driving to the store and turning in the carcass of the last iPod.

Well, within 3 days after Christmas, this Nano is also dead, and she is on-line trying to make another appointment with a “genius”. Meanwhile, over the summer, I bought a $50 Zen MP3 player for my godson, who could care less about what is cool, and just wanted a small player, with a screen, that could store a lot of songs. For one quarter the price of an iPod, this one seems to work fine. Even if it also breaks, I’m only out $50, vs. the $500 I’m in to Apple so far.

In my opinion, the “genius” in all this is Steve Jobs, who is an outstanding marketer able to sell sizzle at a premium price, when the devices are in fact crap quality. I’ll never buy another Apple product. In fact, right now I need to replace our five year old PC, and with all the viruses and slowness imposed by Norton, etc., I was temped by Mac. No way.

Check out the Zens before you buy. You won't be sorry.