Apple iPod 40 GB White M9245LL/A (3rd Generation) OLD MODEL by Apple Computer
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Digital camera reviews of Apple iPod 40 GB White M9245LL/A (3rd Generation) OLD MODEL
Digital camera Review: Deja iPod
Summary: 4 Stars
Deja iPodSomebody who is watchful will no doubt notice that about a year ago I gave a 30 Gigabyte iPod an enthusiastic review. Now I am on my fourth iPod, and I thought I might drop in with some summary comments. In case you think that I am a wealthy man who keeps an iPod in every room, his office, and the car, let me assure you that I still own only one, but it has gone through several phases.
For starters, I still believe that the iPod, with its technology and playing ability, is still the MP3 player to beat - when it is working. Both the iPod's own software and the desktop packages for the PC and the Mac are excellent. The machine is capable of excellent sound, and has additional features that make it surprisingly versatile for both the casual and professional user. The number of add on gadgets is breathtaking. In a word, it is the perfect tech-toy. Well, almost...
How did I manage to get up to 4 iPods. Well, the first revealed that the stereo plug is a bit more fragile than it should be. The second worked for almost a year and then, one day, translated itself to heaven, leaving me with a functional external disk drive, but no music. This second was replaced with the 40 Gigabyte model. Unfortunately, this iPod revealed a design flaw where the sides could separate in cold weather. Note that cold weather in this case consists, for my iPod, of the short walk from my car to my office and back again. Thanks to the wonders of extended warrantees this process has been 'relatively' painless. I am now hoping that I have discovered the last design flaw and can look forward to a few years of peace and music.
Obviously, the lesson here is that iPods need more care than you might think they would. Or they do in Michigan at any rate. Or they do if they belong to me. Note that I have steadfastly refused to give up the ghost and switch to a different brand. This is because, when it is working, it is amazing. So good that the irritation is almost worth it. Another thing I have discovered is that the Mac software does a marvelous job of reloading the music files onto my iPod each time.
My suggestion is that you carefully assess your ability to treat a piece of hardware with disciplined kindness before making the investment. Or you can determine if you earn enough to afford to continually renew the warranty. If you are the careful sort, the iPod will become an irreplaceable companion. If you aren't then take the necessary steps to make sure it is a replaceable one, because you will miss it when it is gone.
Digital camera Review: Disappointing regression from 2nd generation iPod.
Summary: 1 Stars
I gave it one star in a relative sense. Not that it's a piece of junk, but that it is disappointing. Also it might help to lower the averaged rating. I have a 3rd generation 30 GB iPod. I upgraded from a 2nd generation 10 GB iPod. I post review here so that people buying the largest storage iPod can see it (30 GB and 40 GB are almost the same except for the 10 storage difference). I don't like the new design, although some improvements are good. I think the 2nd generation was better. I list the pros and cons of the 3rd generation iPod below.
Cons:
1. Touch sensitive buttons don't work well. They are small and hard to operate. They are less intuitive than the old design with buttons around the wheel. It's hard to find the right key without visual guidance. You cannot operate it in your pocket or in darkness without backlight, which was easy with the old iPod. Sometimes when the air and my fingers are dry, it will not respond to key press, or it responds with a long lag. The worst part is that it will be activated mistakenly all the time: taking it out of pocket, putting it in a case, try to reach for one key but touched the wrong one during the reaching out hand movements. It happens many times a day. Very troublesome and annoying. What do Apple human factor engineers do in testing the hardware interface?
2. Lack of standard firewire port on iPod. With the older iPod, I can charge and connect my iPod everywhere as long as I have a standard firewire cable handy, which is always available. Now I cannot do that without carrying the docking cable around. Portability of the iPod is greatly reduced.
3. When album titles do not fit on one line, they do not scroll when you play them. I have many albums that I have to guess what they are, and have never been able to see them on the iPod. (this problem also existed on 2nd G iPod.)
4. It doesn't have radio or recording function, while many other players have integrated these functions. Radio should be an easy and cheap integration, at least on the corded remote.
5. Very slow mounting in musicmatch. Sometimes it doesn't mount. 2nd G iPod works much smoother. The sync function is very problematic. Sync will not only copy playlist from music match, but also try to copy the song files, even when the files are already present on iPod.
Pros:
1. audio out for better quality output to external speakers and amplifiers.
2. play list on the go.
3. slightly smaller dimension than 2nd G iPod.
4. larger capacity. I ran out of storage on the old one.
I agreed with another review that it's hard to download gigabytes of files on to iPod from a PC with 4pin firewire port, which does not supply power to iPod. Battery drain in about 1-2 hours. I had to charge the battery many times before I could download all my music. However, I found out a way to work around it: connect the iPod to a powered firewire hub. Also connect the PC to the hub. Now the iPod is connected to the PC and is being charged. It is worth the money because now the hub also works as a second power converter.
In summary, iPod is cool, but needs much improvement to win my thumbs up.
Digital camera Review: Disaster
Summary: 1 Stars
No star!! Dark night ! It never works and no help from Apple website, not even answering emails ,(only Amazon does ) Very bad reference , no care at all for customer service !Digital camera Review: Do your homework first!
Summary: 4 Stars
I am writing this review to help keep someone else from going through what I did. I am a heavy-duty MP3 user. I have about 10GB of music stored on my laptop and a 192MB iRock MP3 Player (64MB on board, 128MB Smart Media Card). I run quite regularly and enjoy listening to music while running. As you can imagine I was constantly changing the music on my iRock, which was beginning to be a pain. I have a number of friends who have iPods and I was fascinated with the devices. None of my friends had an iPod with a capacity greater than 20GB but I knew the form factor was the same and that the 40GB was just slightly heavier. One critical aspect that the iPod needed to meet was being able to fit into my armband carrier. Ages ago when I got the iRock I bought a Family Radio System (FRS) Receiver (i.e. Walkie-Talkie) band from Radio Shack that made running with the player a breeze. The iPod did fit the sleeve so I was pretty sure it would work out great for me. Then the day comes when my 40GB iPod arrives. Having never felt a non-tethered 40GB-er I was surprised that it was noticeably heavier than the 20GB version (Ping #1 - While the iPod has an incredible capacity it is not without a trade-off and going from a 2oz Flash Player to a 6oz Disk based player is a huge step. The weight difference is clearly obvious). This did not deter me though as the available space made me salivate. Within 15 minutes of removal from the packaging I noticed a scratch on the shiny chrome back of my iPod. I was shocked. All I did was lay it down on my desk! (Ping #2 - The iPod itself is incredibly delicate. You must handle it with kid gloves. A protective sleeve is a must). The final true test came when I took it out for a run. I am a fairly intense runner and usually average around an 8:30-9:00 minute pace per mile in my daily runs. I was absolutely flabbergasted when the iPod just all of a sudden quit playing. I set up a block of songs from a particular artist, slid the Hold button over to lock the player, and took off. When I stopped running to see what happened (irritating enough), I found that the iPod had reset itself to the initial top menu option of selecting songs by artist. The iPod also stopped playing one time while I was simply walking on the street with it nestled in my coat pocket! (Ping #3 - A disk drive based player, be it a 1.8" Drive, 1" Microdrive, or Cornice Storage Device, is a disk drive at heart and will skip and stop if vibrations or movement reaches a certain threshold.) As a final note, I know that many people love the dial pad feature for navigating though menus and the audio files but I personally thought it was irritating. If you have a lot of music you will be spending a lot of time going round and round!So now here is my advice. If you have a ton of music and you do not intend to exercise with it the iPod is a good choice. BUT if you ever intend to run or workout you might encounter the issues I faced. If at all possible borrow a friend's iPod first, so you can get a good feeling and comfort level with the device (I know, good luck getting a friend to let you borrow theirs). I had the iPod for less than a week and fortunately Amazon did take it back (kudos to Amazon for such great service). Now I am looking into another solid-state player. The Rio Cali and Chiba are leading my list (they are expandable to 768MB - no iPod but a lot of music nonetheless). I just wish they had the same form factor as the Rio Nitrus.
Digital camera Review: Don't worry about using Windows
Summary: 5 Stars
The ipod is one of the coolest tech products you can own. And it does work as well as the hype. I use it with Windows and I agree with the musicmatch bashers. Just say no. As soon as you get your ipod go to the Apple web page and do two things. First download the software update. Second, download itunes for Windows. Do not even think about putting musicmatch on your computer. You know all those buggy little problems you have read about for the ipod and Windows? One word - Musicmatch. I didn't believe it at first. Since I changed to itunes I have not had a single problem (I have XP). Open your wallet, buy the ipod, be the envy of all your friends.