The Real Review (iPod)

by David Gluzman

What?s on your iPod this month? Oh shut up, just tell me about the music already!

After reading many a review of the coveted Apple iPod, and after a few years of resisting the tiny white music holding device; I cracked. That?s right, I purchased iPod.

It didn?t take me very long to figure out that the hype and incredibly high ratings (on average at of at least 9/10) of this product had let me down a road filled with lies. Why the hell did all these people seem to be ready to sell their souls in order to get one (don?t even get me going on the iPod mini and that new fresh Pink model). God.

Seriously. I have a rather vast collection of ?legit? music and have been a huge music enthusiast ever since acquiring my copy of ?Pink Floyd ? Dark Side of the moon?. I enjoy cataloging my music, and I was sure the iPod would allow me to have easy and quick access to my favorite tunes at all times. Knowing this I went an purchased the largest model you could get at the time (a few months ago): 40 gigabytes (retails for $559cdn). Sweet that should accommodate most of my ?good? music. The shuttle launch had commenced.

I can still remember the day it arrived, it was a good day at work since I had a good excuse to not do work for at least 30 minutes (I love packages). Tiny square box, with an origamiesque folding design. I also remember the first words of a co-worker while I was looking at the incredibly shinny behind of the unit, ?Make sure to take a good hard look at that pristine shine, since it will NEVER look like that again?. I had my doubts since the beauty of the pure silver polish along with my custom engraving looked amazing.

Fast forward a few weeks.

I?ve configured my iPod on both a Mac and a Windows machine. There is no question that setting up the software to work well on the PC was a lot more difficult that on the Macintosh. I also discovered the hard way that if you let iTunes manage your music collection and syncing you will potentially delete a lot of data. Since I store my music on my desktop (the windows box), I decided to make sure to get it to work correctly with that computer. Regardless the unit works exactly the same with a PC or a Mac (just as it’s advertised!). Woooah..

Ok.. let?s get on with the show. Please keep in mind, I could have written this in a far more formal way, but I think point form gets the job done better. ;)

Pro?s:

The audio output sound quality is awesome
The thing Looks sweet (for at least 5 minutes)
It?s Trendy thus others know YOU’RE cool
Clickwheel works really well, and I appreciate the tactile feedback rather than pure touch-sensitive controls (as per the 3rd gen unit).
I can store all my contacts on it, along with a few other PDA like functions.

Con?s:

Included headphones to listen to dope sound quality is somewhat poor.
Having to re-rip, or reformat your entire music collection with proper meta data, is a major pain in the ass.
iTunes can be really annoying to work with (there, I said it)
Looks cool for about 5 minutes, until you touch it and then the back of the unit becomes a sloshed oily mess and stays that way forever. Also the unit itself will scratch if you look at it too hard (I?m not joking whatsoever).
The thing is incredibly fragile (don?t drop a Hard Drive or it will dun-break)
It?s Trendy thus other people KNOW you’re trying to be cool
Volume control is the click wheel, vs separate control. I can?t tell you how many times I?ve blasted the volume on this thing while putting it back in my pocket.
While browsing your collection you can?t see everything at once. Ie: It?s either the Artist, Album, Genre etc in an alphabetical order. However since it?s great to be organized via the aforementioned ways, when you are looking for a various artist compilation or just want to browse music it?s a pain in the arse.
Apple product, thus accessories for it are hideously expensive. Example: Regardless of the unit you purchase it will no longer include the in line remote clip controller, thus you need to purchase separately ($49cdn). I wouldn?t mind as much if they just sold the controller, however Apple somehow seems to think that if you need the remote, you also need another pair of shitty white head phones (which the unit DOES already come with). Also the remote that you can buy looks pretty darned shitty as it is, how come they can’t make something half decent (see any MiniDisc player remote).
The unit itself crashes (I?ve personally experienced it completely wonkin? out about five times thus far).
Oh.. And this is more of a comment against Hard Drive manufactures, but the 40gig model is actually only 37gigs (yes yes I understand how they measure Hard drives). And 3 gigs is a fair bit of music, heck that?s almost the size of a DVD! So screw you for selling and charging for a unit that isn’t actually the size you are pushing. I can’t imagine any Columbians not killing your ass, if this were regarding a different type of transaction.

So in other words the iPod is neat, but is a massive disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, the unit itself does the job, it’s just there is SO much more competition coming out of the wood work lately (I’m seriously looking at products from Archos (Gmini 400), which do a heck of a lot more things and costs about the same. Also, I wouldn’t even think of getting one of these for my parents or even my girlfriend because I think the learning curve and frustration isn’t worth my time, let alone theirs.

For sale: 1 iPod. Mint Near Mint Good Working Condition