Pros: Great style, sleek, small, lightweight, great mp3 player, stores calendars, now for Windows!
Cons: no audio recording capabilities
The Bottom Line: The iPod is the simplest, smallest, sleekest mp3 player on the market. With Windows support, it is now the best mp3 player on the market, hands down. Get one today!
mark_ufl's Full Review: Apple iPod 1st Generation 5 GB (MAC) MP3 Player
What better to complement your brand new Mac than with a great music player? The iPod is Apple's hard drive based mp3 player. It functions as a music player that can store up to 1,000 songs on the 5GB version, 2,000 songs on the 10GB version, and 4,000 songs on the recently released 20GB version. In addition, apple has recently made Windows compatible versions of the iPod available, which syncs with MusicMatch Jukebox. The iPod I will review is the 5GB Mac version.
Specifications:
- 5GB, 10GB, or 20GB Hard Drive
- Lithium-Ion Battery, up to 10 hours of use per full charge
- Thickness: 0.78" - 5GB, 0.72" - 10 GB, 0.84" - 20GB
- Weight: 6.5 oz.
- 10GB and 20GB models include a wired remote and carrying case
- Firewire port, AC Adapter, 6' firewire cable- Can store contacts and calendars
- Built in clock, calendar, and breakout game
- Firmware upgradable for future features
- 1 year warranty
First Impressions:
The iPod is an incredibly small device and fits easily in the palm of your hand. You open the box, fold it out, and the iPod sits right there, waiting to be used. I plugged it in, and it began charging. After it was charged, I plugged it into my iBook, and it synced up the songs on my iBook immediately. With the firewire port, it was super quick and very easy.
Usage:
As I said, all you have to do to get the songs onto the iPod is to connect it to your computer. It automatically launches iTunes (or I'd imagine MusicMatch for the Windows version), and begins syncing immediately. If you like, the iPod can be charged directly through the firewire port as well. Since it utilizes a hard drive, you can also turn on a firewire disk mode where you can use the iPod as an external firewire hard drive. It has a 32MB Flash memory buffer for holding music, so skipping is highly unlikely.
It comes with an equalizer so you can play your music with an R&B, Rock, or any of the other equalizations. A new feature with the 1.2 firmware is sound check, which allows you to help make the volume for each song more even... helpful for the different types of music you may listen to. If you have set up playlists, those also transfer to the iPod, so that you can play whichever playlist you want. It can also store contacts as well for viewing. In addition, with the reccently released 1.2 firmware, it can store your calendars as well. On the Mac side, they expect you to use the new version of OS X(Jaguar) and iCal, the soon to be released calendar program. The iPod supports vCal files though, so you can use Entourage or Palm Desktop and export vCal files out to your iPod and they will work. For PCs, I imagine Outlook can export to vCal, which will work fine as well. The 1.2 firmware also enables the built-in clock, in case you need to check the time. It also has a simple breakout game if you feel like playing a game on the iPod every now and then. Although I don't use it, if you listen to audiobooks from Audbile.com, you're now able to download and listen to those on your iPod as well.
There are only five buttons and a scroll wheel on the iPod. There's a play/pause button, a menu button, a forward and back button, and a center button for selections. The scroll wheel allows you to get through songlists with ease. While a song is playing, the scroll wheel controls volume. It's very simple to use, there's no extra clutter that doesn't need to be there. It also comes with a backlit display for the times that you use it at night and need some extra light to see what you're doing. It weighs only six ounces, and can easily be slid into a pocket. The new 10GB and 20GB versions come with a carrying case as well as a wired remote, which are nice added touches to round out the package. They are available to 5GB owners for $39 each. If you decide to give the iPod as a gift, if you order directly from Apple you can add an engraved message on the back of the iPod for an additional $49.
Battery life
The lithium-ion battery does a full charge in about 3 hours, and a quick charge to 75% capacity in about 1 hour. The battery easily lasts for 8-10 hours without any problems, plenty of time for just about anyone. You can charge it with the AC adapter, or it will charge if you leave it connected into your firewire port of your computer (provided it's a powered Firewire port).
Gripes:
The earphones are a bit big, and don't quite fit in my ears properly. My understanding is that the new iPods come with slightly small earphones, which should help out. Small things that would be nice but aren't a dealbreaker would be a radio tuner and voice recording.
Conclusion:
The iPod is arguably the best mp3 player hands down. There are other hard drive based mp3 players, but none have the looks, the size, or the simplicity of the iPod. It's ability to be used as a regular hard drive as well is very nice, and it comes in a variety of hard drive sizes to suit each person. Apple continues to add features and functionality to this product, and it is a very solid product that works exactly as advertised. It works really well, and it looks great! What else could you ask for?
Discontinued by manufacturer, replaced by model #M8976LL/A FireWire interface for fastest digital transfer available Download audiobooks from Audible....More at Amazon Marketplace
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