Apple 10 GB iPod (Win) Electronics

Average Rating:

1. Extremely compact.
2. Extremely easy to use. Really don't need to read the manual. The touch sensitive scroll wheel works like a charm although it's a bit too sensitive.
3. Sound Quality is very good. Volume is more than adequate for most users. Maybe an equalizer would be good (Take a hint from Creative)
4. Fast startup time.
5. Good LCD display although when the contrast is increased,black vertical bars seem to appear and when the song title scrolls, the text is not very clear.

Now the bad part.

1. [Pricey]... is a lot of money for a portable MP3 Player, but the price/storage is very attractive. Compare this to spending [less] for a top Sony MP3 player with 128MB Memory stick. Buy another memory stick and you've just spent about the price of a 10GB ipod which has 40 times the storage capacity.

2. Non removable battery. This may be a compromise done to acheive the incredible size of the ipod, but this has serious implications. In most electronics devices, the life of a battery is much shorter than most other components, so it's a fair assumption that your battery will be dead sooner than the other components in your ipod. Toshiba rates the life of the hard disk in the ipod as 5 years, but the battery will lose much of it's capacity in a period of 3 years.

3. The battery discharges on it's own after a few days even if the ipod hasn't been used. This might be a design flaw or a bug in the software.

4. The case of the ipod is very easily scratched and very fingerprint prone. You have to be very careful in handling the ipod if you want to preserve it's beauty. The mirrored back looks great but it's beauty is short lived.

5. The software included (Musicmatch Jukebox) is terrible. It's sad that Apple decided to include third party software instead of porting iTunes to Windows, because the hardware and software are light years apart. Too many problems with Jukebox to mention it here....Avoid it and use Ephpod...It's much better although you can't save your playlists in your PC with Ephpod.

All in all, when I really think about it, I feel that I should wait till a better version comes out before I fork my hard earned money. Apple has done a great job but there is a lot of room for improvements and a step in the right direction would be to avoid Musicmatch Jukebox (Junkbox???).

First, let me warn you, Musicmatch is not Itunes. If you know anything about the wonderful play list program that allows Imacs to hook up with Ipods, then prepare to be disappointed. Musicmatch will sync up your PC with the Ipod, but you can't do major syncs without first erasing everything on your Ipod and re-uploading all your songs in one swoop. That makes swapping the Ipod to and from different computers very difficult because if you want to add songs from more than one computer to the Ipod you have to do it manually.

However, Musicmatch does allow you to set up playlists, a major function of the Ipod. Once your music is loaded, you can browse through your songs via playlists, song list, artist, genre, etc. And it's all done with the wonderful and effortless touch wheel in the center and the simple five-button interface. Simplicity is the key here, and boy does it work. Even Helen Keller could have figure out how to use this thing.

Play time for the ipod is about 10 hours plus on a rechargeable battery that can be charged via the computer (depending on your firewire card) or external AC. The audio quality is some of the best I've heard on an MP3 player, especially when the MP3 quality is 128 or higher.

As mentioned above, the Ipod DOES require a firewire port in order to sync with a computer. They're cheap, about $$$$ (Belkin makes a great 3 port IEEE 1394 Firewire card) but it is an added expense. If you have a laptop, the Ipod comes with a firewire to mini-firewire converter, which is usually the standard on laptops.

Also, unfortunately, the Windows Ipod cannot play WMA files (direct CD rips or high quality Windows Media sound files). MP3 files only. There are features like Date/time/calendar/and contact list but to synchronize them with your computer is more painful than pleasant or worthwhile. And while Musicmatch isn't perfect, I've had no trouble with it. Although If you have Musicmatch 7.2 or higher, you might be slightly annoyed with having to go "backwards" to a lower version of Musicmatch, which as of yet has no updates.

Also, it has the distinct feature of being one of the most expensive players on the market, beaten only by it's sister model, the 20 gig, at $$$ dollars. However, if it's the difference between buying the Delorian and the Diablo (and you can afford it), I'll take the Diablo any day.

The Final Word: If you want the best, this is it, however the best comes at a price!

I recently purchased the apple ipod 10gb for windows, the ipod connected to my computer which is a dell, easily with musicmatch jukebox and i have also used a program called Ephpod which works wonders in organizing your contacts, calendar and playlist functions of the ipod, in terms of sound quality, unparalled, ease of use superb, beauty great except that the case can pick up fingerprints pretty readily, but the included case and remote control are awesome and well made, problems, had one but it turned out it was my misunderstanding, apple support is much more helpful, caring and knowledgetic that their counterparts at Dell and Compaq for who i have dealt with pretty readily and often, the firewire part of the action presented me no problems because my laptop has a built in firewire port, but if you need to get a firewire card for your pc, try to get a 6-pin one that lets you charge the ipod while it is connected to your computer, like on the mac version, ... Good Luck with an Ipod its portability, size and interface make it the best mp3/cd/md player option that is available, i have used many different players and this is the best one for athletes or people on the go, running and most sports this is the best option for taking your whole music collection along. The firewire support is great because you can purchase and use a 6pin as well allowing you to charge the ipod as well as transferring music

To answer some questions that have arisen,
The most helpful program when using Ipod for Windows is NOT xplay, it frequently crashes and erases all info on IPod, Ephpod is an easy download at Ephpod.com it has all the functionality of an apple and allows you to customize your ipod with news, calendars, contacts etc.
The apple ipod for windows does support Audible Books, it has the software built into it and ephpod as well as musicmatch support audio book format. Ephpod is still the better option.
If you have any questions email me at...
I have had the ipod for about a month now and it has never failed to produce high quality audio and is extremely portable. Of the new options out there by creative, archos and rio are not as good, they sacrifice something somewhere, wheter it is portability, or skip protection which the ipod has 32 mb of protection.
Good Luck with your IPOD it is definetely worth the money