None of that tomfoolery with the battery should base your decision on whether you get one or not. They can be replaced now, whether by Apple, or by buying your own battery and installing it yourself. And yeah, recharging it every day will probably weaken the life.

ipodsdirtysecret is a very overrated site that presents a biased picture of an existing but very minor issue with a limited number of iPods.

i can highly reccomend the iPod, i have a 3rd generation 20GB one, and with firewire hookup to my PC, it works beautifully.
I've heard good things about the Zen, but havent had a chance to use one myself yet, but the iPod is smaller, lighter and damn, that touchwheel might just be a gimmick but it works SO well.

well, i bought a 3rd Generation 10gig iPod second-hand in Tokyo.

it cost me $US250... which i think is a pretty good deal.

everything works fine, and i'm now coming to the conclusion that this is the greatest toy i've ever purchased.

highly recommended.

I was given a 3g 10gb iPod for Christmas. I love it. It is so elegantly desgined, its a joy to use.

You can replace the battery yourself, if you wish:
http://www.ipodbattery.com/

A great site devoted to iPods:
http://ipodlounge.com/index.php

I recently bought a Exo2 case by Lajo, very nice
http://www.lajo.biz

Also upgraded to the new iPod in-the-ear headphones from Apple, like those much better than the buds.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...nMore=M9394G/A

I travel my car a lot. Its nice to have dozens of CDs with me, stored in my iPod, For now I use a cassette adapter. But will look at some sort of direct connect after I trade cars in a month or two. My son was able to pick up an add-on connection to his Kenwood stereo. There are several methods to feed the signal from the iPod directly into you car stereo. Do a google and you'll see, depending on the stereo you have, many choices. Check the iPodlounge, also.

I had an IPOD, I sold it. I use a cheap rca Kazoo now. It doesnt hold near what an Ipod will but It sounds so much better. I too went on the net trying to decicde what to get and read many posts and articles. The bottom line on a Ipod for me was the sound quality is very poor. I bought 3 different types of headphones and still it was not good. If you dont believe me, you will when you hear one. It is a very cool device. It's easy to use and its small and cute. You'll love it until you llisten to it.

ive never had an issue with sound quality personally....

Craven - Have you considered an FM transmitter? seems easier and more flexible than a direct connection. I dont have one, but a friend does and loves it.

No I have not. From what I've read at iPodlounge, some work much better than others. I'll check into this closer once I trade cars in a couple of months.

I just bought the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra (40 gig) for only $300 online. It's a little bigger than an ipod, but much cheaper and has virtually all the same features. The front cover easily snaps off and the battery sits underneath. This is a real nice feature in case you ever need to replace the battery. The navigation system may not be as easy as the ipod, but I have no complaints at all.

want one of these. too buku!

I have an iRiver iHP-140. It's definitely as overpriced as the iPod, but there are some features it has that the iPod does not. Btw.. I'm not flaming the iPod or anything because I love its design and the scrollwheel. The iRiver has 16 hrs of batt. time, which is 2x that of the iPod. It also has built-in inline recording to mp3, great for recording lectures. It has a remote with an LCD screen, something that iPod does not. Then it has an FM tuner and support for .ogg files. If you decide not to get an iPod, I recommend that you look into the iRiver iHP series. Good luck!

I've heard somewhere that the iPod has a battery life of 8 months (at least in some cases).

I'm all for buying the ipod. I've had a 1st gen since it came out and loved it/still use it. The auto playlist syncing feature rules and I'm ok with how much I spent on it.

me too! i've had mine forever, i would recomend apple care... if you spend that much, a little more helps for piece of mind

I have heard under normal use it is about a year, which isn't too bad. A year of constant use will make it so it just doesnt hold as much of a charge. It's not like it is dead dead. Just doesnt work as good. Regardless for around $50 it all gets fixed.
I love my 3G 15gig, hasn't given me any problems.

00

iPods are a thing of beauty, simple as that

hahahaha that joke is grat, ,and about the ipod yeah if i had the money i would buy one but since i dont i wont :P

I got an ipod mini not too long ago and I love it. It's tiny, it weighs next to nothing, it's pink, and it's *shiny*, the interface is nice, and I just adore it overall. The batteries are better on the mini's, but they don't hold as much music. I haven't found enough music to fill up 1/5 of it yet, so that is fine with me. I haven't found anything about it that I don't love. Itunes is a very convenient music program to use, with or without an ipod.
The warranty is really good for regular Ipods, too. A friend of mine just dropped hers while running, broke the screen, and they just gave her a new one.

Where'd we be without Penny Arcade

A few months back I decided I was gonna buy an iPod soon, but then BoCo bought one and told me what a flaming pile of shit it is. And I hate the fact you can't change the battery. Apple is fucking stupid, and I won't waste my money on anything they make. I just ordered a Nomad Zen Xtra 30giger for $260, shipping included. I should have it by Wednesday or Thursday this week.

sure you can change the battery...maybe not in the airport when it runs out of juice... (I have a RioS50 for that reason AA is available everywhere)

http://ipodbattery.com/

I got a question, could I play the 4000 mp3's I've ripped to my hard drive on an iPod, or would I have to re-rip everything in AAC?

i just dragged them into iTunes

Yeah, I know, but it just looks like a pain in the ass to change that bitch in an iPod.

http://www.ipodbattery.com/slimipodinstall.htm

I'll bet many people have fucked up their over-priced iPods doing that themselves. It's a completely stupid design.

I got my Nomad today, and it's the greatest thing of all time. No way in hell an iPod is better. Plus, I can change the battery in about 5 seconds and don't have to worry about fucking it up. Not to mention it's cheaper. :)

yes it'll play mp3,wav,AAC,and a couple of others.
i'm getting a 15 gb tomorrow.

I'm thinking about getting an iPod myself. Is 10gb the smallest you can get? If so, how many songs does it hold?

I haven't done much research on this just yet. I'm hoping to get a bit of money for my birthday to put towards a purchase ;)

My 10gb iPod has a total capacity of 9.2gb. I have 1,265 songs in it that use all but 1.8gb. All the songs are ripped at 192. I'll have to look at iTunes (on my other PC) to see how many days of continuous music that is, something like 4 days I think.

I think the 10gb has been replaced by the 15gb unit.

iPod Mini 4gb, $250, for $300 you can get at 15gb which is the current smallest of the ipods

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

Yikes. I doubt I'll be gettin that kinda cash for my birthday!

the Karma has been on my shortlist of 'things I want but do not really NEED' for sometime. Seriously thought of buying one with part of tax return but will likely spend it on current bills instead.
two things that appeal to me:
0) better support - FLAC/Ogg-Vorbis/other formats I never have used or stopped using. My preferred lossy format for my webpage and few CD rips (<90% of my source material is 78/45/33 vinyls) is .MP4 but Ogg-Vorbis is higher on my list portable preference.
1) nice design