Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: IPOD's thinking about getting one?

To all the IPOD owners out there, I'm thinking about getting an IPOD for Dad's Day. Would you recommend me looking at local retail stores, or can I save money with online etailers? Also, where would you recommend I go if I do purchase online?

Would the mini's be enough, or should I look at a 20+gb version? I only have about 100 cd's at home, but plan to do some downloading also...

Randy

Apple is pretty hard nosed about getting retailers to sell at MAP (minimum advertised price), but you may be able to save maybe $5. We've got around 40 GB of music, a 20 GB iPod, and a 1 GB iPod shuffle. If you don't care about paying a little extra for the aluminum finish and small size, I'd say get the mini. Do you need to carry your entire music collection with you? Because it's all the computer. I just set it up to randomly sync up to the limit of the given iPod, and resync it every week or month. Works pretty well. The trick is having enough hard drive space on your computer!

you can try ableshoppers.com or slickdeals.net for some rebates. Also, you can go to the refurb section in the online Apple store, sometimes you can get lucky.

Mini/20GB/40GB/Shuffle, depends on what you're using it for. I've amassed an iTunes library of existing/old MP3s and iTunes purchases that is about 31GB, but doesn't include all my CDs. But I don't keep all of it on my 20GB 4th gen iPod. I just manually sync certain playlists so that I can manage the size.

Mini - good if you want a small package, maybe if you want it for active exercise. Shuffle is probably better for this but it's only up to 1GB.

Photos - good if you want a BIG HD and you want to show pix.

20GB/40GB/etc - works best for me. Small enough form factor and large enough drive.

I bought one for my father in law for xmas and ended up getting an extra for myself. Used a friend of family 10% coupon at CompUSA.

I also have a toddler who likes her music in the car. So I burned all her CDs and created a playlist of her favorite songs. Now I don't have to keep hitting skip on the car CD player. But I do have to listen to her music...

I also got audible audiobooks for my commute to work.

I love my iPod so much I bought a Mac Mini to go into my Home Theatre. It's being set up to support iTunes instead of my PC.

Thanks Ken, I have a pretty big hard drive, 60GB I think, I'll start by just using my favorite CD's and/or favorite songs. Not sure I'll put entire albums on the IPOD. I've getting DSL soon, and I hear you can download entire albums for around $9 and songs for like 99cents.

Also, I see the new ones are advertised as being HP 4th generation, interesting. More than likely, one of the IPOD shuffles would work for me, or the 4GB versions. Especially, if it is easy to change things from time to time...

I kind of see the shuffle as a second iPod, like a set of M2s and a small subwoofer. It doesn't hold quite enough to make a long road trip and not go insane, but I would think a mini 6 GB would cover that.

The Creative and iRiver player offerings are suppose to be pretty good too.

I have an iPod Mini, 4gb, and wish I had more space. I rather load all my MP3's and not have to choose.

I have the 20 GB version and I have over 1500 songs in my iPod, using only 7.5 GBs. My only problem with the iPod is the design. If you use headphones other than the buds that come with them, sometimes the slighest pull of the headphone cord will cause the iPod to pause. Not even setting the lock can stop it from happening. It is annoying, and from an engineering standpoint, I think the iPod has a ways to go. Also, if you have a PC, be aware that some users of iTunes 4.7.1, myself included, have had issues with the software crashing the computer. My iPod came with 4.7, some I reinstalled the more stable version. I think 4.8 has been released so maybe that fixes the issue.

Edited to add: I would buy the iPod directly from Apple. I had a problem with mine after two weeks and they replaced it, no questions asked. An internet site or stores with draconian return policies like Best Buy would probably make you send it for repairs.

In reply to:

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The Creative and iRiver player offerings are suppose to be pretty good too.

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The S/O just got a Creative (MuVo 512MB) I played with it a bit... seems pretty cool so far... she power walks with it, the menus seem pretty straightforward to me, but I've also never used an iPod so I can't compare.

Nowhere near the same capacity on hers, though... 512MB, does WMA and MP3, and doubles as a flashdrive if need be. (It just ignores unplayable files in directories)

Bren R.

a buddy o mine just got a little transmitter on his Ipod. it somehow broadcasts the signal from the Ipod, and you can tune it in on a radio within a small distance.

he was playing it at his desk last week, and told me to tune the radio on my desk(about 30ft away), and i could pick it up clear as a bell.. i thought that was pretty cool.

bigjohn

royce, be careful with those heaphone jack pull-outs. I broke my previous (2G) iPod's headphone jack by accidentally yanking out the headphone cord at a bad angle.