Who owns an iPod?

I have an Iriver h300 and i think its wipes the floor with the iPoo. Any comments on your mp3 players or the overrated iPod?

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I've owned a 15 GB 3rd Generation iPod for about a year, and don't find it overrated in the least. Aside from the standard things like the size of the player itself, or the amount of music it holds, the most important feature is its intuitiveness. It's not much good carrying around thousands of songs if you can't browse through them relatively easily, and the iPod's scroll wheel (or click wheel, on other models) makes it easier than anything else I've yet seen or tried.

Ya, it just isn't overrated. It's the clear market dominator. I don't have one, but I use them from time to time here at work, or in cars with friends that do have them, and there is nothing to complain about as far as it's reliability and usability. As for how it compares to the other stuff, I have only been exposed to the sony device and the iPod, and the iPod was easier to use, as Yoda stated. I'll scope out the iRiver, though, seems pretty cool.

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But why would you want to scroll through thousands of songs? It makes more sense to just scroll through the artists you have, then scroll through their songs.

I own a Creative Zen Touch, and although it ain't the sexiest thing in the world, I find it better than a 20GB iPod. The Zen has 24-hour battery life, it can hold WMAs and you can use Windows Media Player to store songs.

But I suppose the iPod is a lot better for all the fashion victims out there.

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Lots of my friends own iPods, they're always complaining about their ear-phones breaking and their tracks skipping. Plus, I've heard about batteries running out completely, so you have to pay about half the price of your iPod for a new one, and problems with the software wiping out your entire libary.

You just can't stand people disagreeing with you on this, can you?

Sometimes you're not sure who sings a particular song. And if you have enough songs, you might top 1,000 artists, as well. Even a few hundred is enough to require that you have an easy way to browse them. Everyone has the technology to store tons of songs now, so the important thing now is being able to browse through them easily.

I don't know what model they own, but I have a 3G, my brother owns a 2G, and two other family members of mine own Shuffles, and I've not heard of any recurring problems with ear phones breaking or tracks skipping. I've used several pairs of ear buds and the iPod's have been vastly superior to some of the cheap backup pairs I have.

As for batteries running out; that happens to any lithium ion battery after a period of time. With regular use, it's about 18 months, and the replacement is $99 if done officially by Apple, and $50 if done by most third parties. That's not really a complaint about the iPod, though, because it applies to any portable MP3 player which doesn't run on user-replaceable batteries, which covers most of the high-end players.

Oh, I can. It's just that from experiences (or rather, my friends'), iPod ain't the way to go. Unless we're talking about those super cool colour screen Photo iPods, which is a different matter all together.

Sadly, I still have a monochrome. Clearly, they'll all be color before long, at which time I might try to pawn this off on someone and grab a new one.

I like the backlight quite a bit, though; it's this light blue glow that works quite well for both aesthetics and legibility.

Anyway, to each their own. I loves mines, I do.

Hmmmm, everyone i know who has had an iPod has encounter some problem, i call them over-rated as they are the market leader, yet offer so few features compared to the competition. Admittedly they have advantages, though i don't think the annoying wheel is one of them.
Not to baost, but my iRiver, same price but i get radio, recording, colour screen, excellent quality video playback, easy navigation, simple design.
As far as i'm concerned iPod is aimed at the fashion conscious consumer over the practical consumer.

I've got an IPOd mini (my second one actually since my first got stolen)...very handy device especially since you can use it as a hard drive as well. Also, its size is unique...i can put the thing in my jeans pockets..and control the music using the very sensitive wheel on the OUTSIDE OF MY PANTS to get to whatever song i like. Its that user friendly you dont even need to be touching the device to get to exactly what you want.

The only downside is the money, for 200$ each..you'd expect a bit more...but i suppose most of that money goes into quality.

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Darn right! That's why I have one.

Seriously though, I have an iPod mini (£139 in Argos so the price was ok) which does everything I want it to. Never had any problems with it and can search by title, artist or album - dunno where the 'scrolling through 1000s of songs' thing comes in.

Compared to other MP3 players I've had, the iPod's main advantage is that it seems bulletproof. Y'know those cigarette tins in top pockets that saved soldier's lives during the War?

Just wish I'd paid a wee bit more and got the 6 gig version though...

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If you put the iPod into your trousers pocket without putting hold on, is it quite easy for the wheel to get pressed, hence change the music while on the move?

Anyway, I'm really against iPod because there are far better devices around, i can't understand the appeal of an iPod....

What other players have you had Tac, mp3 players that is...

But they're not "far better" for everyone. Some people have no use whatsoever for a built-in radio, and playing video on such a tiny screen seems to me more about being able to say you can than actually getting any entertainment out of it.

The iPod is fashionable, yes, but it's appeal is based as much on its simplicity as its aesthetics. It's as straightforward an MP3 player as you could ask for; that's why so many music buffs are enamored with it. It's not bogged down with unncessary features; it does one thing, and it does it almost flawlessly. The focus remains on the music.

Devices have been becoming more and more bloated over time. Phones now take pictures, videos, send IMs, hold calendars and address books and play games. I think the success of devices like the iPod is the start of a backlash against bloatware.

I started off with a little 256mb Flash Drive player, which was fine at what it did though only held 3 albums worth of songs. Still use it as a flash drive though.

Then I bought a Creative Zen mini a few months back and had no end of bother with it - yeah it has features that the iPod doesn't but I don't need a radio etc. The quality was awful, though maybe I'd been sold a pup.

That's how I ended up with the iPod, which I've only had a few weeks to be fair, but there's been no problems with it and iTunes is a dandy to use.

I love my Ipod its so easy to search through my songs and update it with new songs. My friend has the new Iriver and its alot harder to look through his music and use. The only complaint of the Ipod is the battery but its not that big of a deal

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My sister gave me a Jens of Sweden MP400 (512 MB) for my birthday. I like the design and the fact that it's small. I really know nothing about these things; I never had an mp3-player before so I don't know how this one compares to iPods and other models. But I'm happy with mine except for the too short earphone cord.

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Haha I forgot to mention in my first post that I wear my ipon while working and listen to it all day. I work at Macy's so imagine a guy walking around with white earphones asking "How may I help you?" and you've got me lol. Anyways the battery lasts my entire 8 hour shift, if I don't turn on the light of course. However if i keep playing with the menues constantly or using the light..then the 8 hours are dramatically reduced to about 4.

I have an iPod Shuffle -- which I got for free off one of those internet sites (yes, some of them are legit). I'm not sure I would have paid $150 for one (I have the 1GB model), but FREE worked great for me.

I use it in my car, which has a tape deck and no CD player. I use the tape car adapter and plug the Shuffle into it to play everything through the speakers. I let the tiny little Shuffle dangle from the end of the adapter cord, which I keep loosely wrapped around my hands-free car phone console. It sways back and forth while I'm driving, but the sound is crystal clear and nothing ever skips.

My big complaint about the iPod in general (including iTunes) is that the Apple support people really treat people using iPods in Windows like scum. They are unhelpful to the nth degree. Plus, the iPods have this weird proprietary habit of wanting to make sure you use them on only one computer. Otherwise they give you no end of hassle about trying to move your *legitimately purchased* music from, say, your desktop to your laptop computer.

I feel like my mommy is following me around, trying to make sure I don't do anything naughty. It's very off-putting.

Plus, every Windows computer where I've used iTunes, it seems to eat up the memory and makes everything else run noticeably more slowly. It's obvious while using iTunes that it wasn't made for Windows.

If/when this thing breaks and I have to buy my own music player, I have no clue what I'll buy. I'm betting by then the Windows-based players will be more intuitive. And still cheaper than iPods. Those Apple people just don't know how to make an inexpensive product.

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I've never noticed that - though as I said earlier, only been using one for a few weeks. Doesn't slow anything down, nice weather for a Monday dontcha think?

Here's a quick snapshot of the system resources that iTunes takes up on my pc when it's running:

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I was speaking more from end-user experience than system resources. It just seems to hang onto memory even after it's closed too. I would have thought it was my desktop acting squirrelly but it now does it on my laptop too. WMP and even RealPlayer don't seem to make anything sluggish.

I did notice on yours that it seems to use almost as much memory as Explorer. There are also other programs that load while using the iPod, with names like iTunesHelper and stuff like that (or is it iPodHelper?).

I'm just not impressed with the auxiliary support and rules for use of the hardware. If the only problem were with iTunes, I'd sound more forgiving.

But hey, it was free ... and I forgot to mention that, while out and about away from a computer, it's VERY cool and very tiny. And intuitive, even if the on/off/shuffle switch on the back is a tad tough to manipulate easily.