Designer music on the move... or not. (Apple iPod (3G) 40 GB)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Apple iPod (3G) 40 GB
Date:	21/07/05 (463 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Extremely well designed in looks and usability. Plenty of storage. Decent sound quality.

Disadvantages: Poor battery life, easily scratched. Carrying case and new headphones add extra expense. Unreliable.

For the past few years, I'd been using various models of Sony's Minidisc players as my portable audio device of choice. At the time, it made sense to me to use one of these over the newer mp3 players which I thought were too small, capacity wise, to be of any use (plus I really doubted their sturdiness).

While visiting America last year, I had the chance to see Apple's iPod up close and personal for the first time. I was really impressed by it, design-wise. It was small, but not too small (slightly longer, narrower and thinner than a pack of cards) and had a pleasing weight to it that made it feel sturdy and not too fragile.

I did eventually buy one before leaving the States. At the time it was the top of the range 4th Generation 40GB model which came complete with a docking station, various connection leads, CDs of drivers and software and the obligatory manual.

I was advised by one of the nice Apple shop staff that if I drained the battery before my initial charge, then the power indicator would be more accurate for some reason. This was easy to do by using the backlight a lot and playing 'Solitaire' which comes as standard on the iPod as an included game.

I had the choice of two connections to my PC - either via USB2.0 or Firewire (sometimes referred to as IEEE-1394). Using either of these connections means that you can synchronise your music to your iPod and charge it at the same time. Also, if you're feeling brave enough, every now and again Apple updates the firmware which can offer new features, improved performance, better battery life etc. This is not a terribly difficult thing to install, although the instructions can be a tad vague at times. Software for iPods can be found at: http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/ You'll have to check for this manually though. I would have preferred it if Apple had automatically informed you of updates as they do for their iTunes program.

Setting up the iPod was simplicity itself. Getting my music from my PC to the iPod via iTunes initially was easy enough and once the battery was fully charged, I was ready to go. iPods are sold unformatted which means you can use them on either a PC or an Apple Mac. Upon first use, they're then 'formatted' to match your computer. Once this decision is made, it cannot be changed without reformatting your iPod and losing all the music on your iPod.

If you are planning on buying any mp3 player, you might want to consider importing your music to your PC long before you actually make your purchase. If you have a substantial music collection, importing it could take quite a long time and obviously if you've spent money on a good mp3 player, you'll want to use it as soon as possible. How you encoding your mp3s will have an effect on the sound quality of your mp3 player. If you encode your music at a lower bit rate (e.g. 128 kbps) then you will be able to store more music on your mp3 player, but at a poorer sound quality than if you'd used 256 kbps (for example). Things like audiobooks require a lower bitrate while maintaining sound quality - usually 64 kbps.

Currently most of my music is encoded at 192kbps and at the time of writing I have 3281 songs stored on my iPod (which is 17.90 GB worth - just under half of the storage capacity or 9.3 days worth of music). I've found that the iPod delivers adequate sound quality at 192 kbps though some audio purists might scoff at the output. For a portable audio system, it's completely acceptable to me. Sound quality can also be improved by investing in a better set of ear or headphones as Apple's are not particularly great.

Actually using the iPod is dead easy. The click wheel has just the right sensitivity to make it usable without being too sensitive and the menu/display is easily seen, even without the backlight. The fonts used are clear and the text can be easily read. There one or two slight niggles about the use of the iPod which are to do with the way they display song information. It can be difficult sometimes to pick out a song. If, for example, you wanted to listen to "Power of Love" by scrolling through all your songs, there's no way to tell if it's "Frankie Goes to Hollywood", "Huey Lewis and the News" or "Jennifer Rush". You can view your music using other criteria such as artist (which solves the songs with the same name problem), album (which eliminates the problem of you having various versions of the same song), genre and other, logical, sorting methods. I would have liked to have seen a feature where you can view a song's mp3 tags when selecting a song.

Once or twice, for some reason, the iPod decides that it's not going to play the track I select and skips immediately to the next one in the list. That can be annoying, especially when I've just closed my carrying case and put the iPod in my pocket, only to have to dig it out again to select the correct track. This doesn't happen all the time, but enough times to be mildly annoying. In the nine months that I've owned the iPod, I've had to reboot it twice when it froze/crashed. Luckily, the iPod equivalent of Ctrl-Alt-Delete (hold down the 'Select' button and 'Menu' at the same time until the Apple logo appears) sorted that out.

iTunes, as Apple's official software for use with the iPod is easy enough to use and produces good results even as a media player. Importing music, creating play lists, burning CDs etc. are all easy to do and takes little effort, especially if you are connected to the internet where iTunes will look for your CD in the Gracenotes CDDB. Getting your mp3 tags correct is a must when using an iPod. iTunes is now on version 4.9 and new versions are released regularly. Using iTunes also gives you access to Apple's music store enabling you to buy music online.

There are other pieces of software on the market for use with your iPod that might offer extra functionality that is currently limited in iTunes. If you're interested, check out Anapod at http://www.redchairsoftware.com/

I've found that I can get around nine or ten hours of battery life out of my iPod on average. This is dependant on various factors such as how long I use the backlight, how much disk access there is (playing songs in order is less battery intensive than playing songs using the 'shuffle' feature). On top of that, battery life will drain significantly over a few days even if you have the iPod turned off. Lucky, the cables that are used to connect to your PC can also be used to connect to the mains (with an adapter that was supplied with the iPod), so charging your iPod while away from your PC is possible.

Being the clumsy oaf that I am, I have actually dropped my iPod a few times. It has come through these incidents unscathed and unscratched (probably due to the carrying case), but it is good to know that it's a lot more sturdy than it looks.

Here are a few extra options available that I have yet to use: you can use your iPod to carry around non-music data - as a glorified external hard drive and it's also possible to store a list of contacts and their details. I can see that these features could be useful, but I have other methods of storing data and contacts in a portable way.

Overall, I have found this to be an excellent purchase, even with the reasonably high price tag of US$399 (you can find it for much cheaper than this now and there are newer versions on the market with colour screens). It's in near-constant use and unlike my old Minidisc recorder, I don't have to continue to copy my music to minidiscs and cart them around. Everything is stored on my PC and synchronized with my iPod each day as it charges.

Given that a carrying case is a must because the iPod is prone to scratching, I am disappointed that an inline remote control wasn't included with the iPod. That's probably my only real gripe about this marvellous gadget though.

PC requirements:
PC with USB 2.0 or FireWire ports
Windows 2000 (with SP4) or Windows XP SP2 or later
iTunes 4.7 or later (included)

Mac System Requirements:
Mac with built-in USB 2.0 or FireWire
Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later
iTunes 4.7 or later (included)

UPDATE #1

Towards the end of October 2005, my iPod started to behave erratically, eventually giving up the ghost. I tried, in vain, all the suggested possible solutions from the Apple website, with no luck. Calling the technical support line, I was once again run through these tests (despite being in the queue for an hour) before ultimately, the operator authorised a repair. A few days later, a package arrived via courier to pack my iPod, this was then returned to Apple who diagnosed the problem and sent a replacement unit (of the same model). The whole episode took less than 10 days from my phone call, and all was right with the world.

Or so I thought.

On Friday 24th March 2006, my iPod started to behave erratically, eventually giving up the ghost. Over the weekend, I tried all the suggested possible solutions from the Apple website, with no luck. Calling the technical support line on Monday 27th March, I was put through to a friendly American chap who took my details to trace my account. He explained to me that Apple's warranty period only lasts 1 year, though if a repair or replacement is required on the original unit, then this might be extended by 90 days, depending on the date of repair. As I was only a few days away from my warranty running out (in October), I got the 90-day extension, but my iPod was now out of warranty.

A repair, he added, would be "One hundred and sixty nine British Pounds". I told him that I considered that to be unacceptable and thanked him for his help.

I am in the middle of writing a letter of complaint to Apple, so I have no idea how this story ends, but when I spend approximately £250 on a piece of equipment, I don't expect it to last sixteen months at the very most. I also don't expect the average lifespan of such a piece of equipment to be eight months, only for the company to ask me to pay the market value of a brand new unit for a repair.

At the moment, I would find it hard to recommend Apple goods to others. The iPod was excellent while it worked, but the reliability and after-sales care is unacceptable to me for the price I paid for it.

Update #2

The letter to Apple was posted on Tuesday 28th March explaining my situation and my dissatisfaction in the reliability of my iPods and Apple's ludicrous requests for £169 for a repair (especially when a brand new Apple 30GB model with all the updated features such as video playback, colour screen etc. are currently being sold on Amazon UK for £189). Today (May 1st) I received a call from an Apple customer care representative who informed me that they'd looked into my complaint, but there was nothing they could do (i.e. there's nothing they WOULD do). The person agreed that £169 was expensive for the repair, but reiterated that matters were essentially closed. The phone call was simply a courtesy to let me know that they'd investigated some possible solutions to my complaint, but that action "wasn't possible".

Essentially, my point of view hasn't changed from five weeks ago when my iPod first failed – when it works, Apple's iPod is a great gadget, and if anything goes wrong within the year long warranty period, then they will be helpful in organising a repair or replacement. If your iPod goes wrong outside of this warranty period, then I get the impression that while Apple's customer care staff will be friendly (and possibly sympathetic), they'll not be particularly helpful unless you have a wad of cash in your back pocket going spare (and even then, it'd still make more sense to spend the cash on a new iPod and get a year's warranty).

With the reliability of the two iPods I've owned being less than satisfactory and the lack of decent, long-term customer support for products that should last well beyond their warranty, I'd think long and hard about buying Apple branded products in future.

Summary: Apple's Fourth Gen iPod with great ease of use but underwhelming battery life and poor reliability.

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