Quick help on buying an IPOD

The differences in sound quality between devices is roughly zero. They all sound equally average.

Once you have crossed that bridge then you will find the whole package of iPod is going to be a lot better for you.

The new sonys look very nice (the blue ones) but when I held one they are heavy, and they are very expensive.

In terms of cost per gig the 30 gig one from apple is 325 euro which in context makes your mates one not a great deal. But there again I am not sure how prices are holding on iPods, my 40 gig one is not worth 80 quid now, hey ho.

IMHO, I have one of the new A-3000 Sony's. It's very different from an iPod in terms of navigation. For mobile use the Sony system is OK. I bought mine as it could store 10K+ songs albeit @ 64kps. However, the battery use is not great (I have a 1gB Walkman Bean and this is much better), and the Connect software is crap. Sonicstage 3.2 is much better and I have just downloaded iTunes to see if I can get it to work with the the Sony in MP3 mode.
My Walkman bean was E99 and my A-3000 was E279 - 5% (I think) Bought direct from Sony - Black - v.v.cool!
ciao

Thanks for the replies!

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
In terms of cost per gig the 30 gig one from apple is 325 euro which in context makes your mates one not a great deal.

For me 20 gig is more than enough. I don't intend to put all my cd's on the Ipod, it's primarily for travelling, music when I work (not all music is suited to that) and maybe for in my car.

What do yopu think is a good price for a 20 gig machine?

Bas, I truly don't know what a good price is, his price might be great. But if I were you check on ebay for buy it now priced 20gigers and see what people want for them.

I would plum for a nano or iPod video and get the FM tuner from apple for it for the best of both worlds.

You could get the nano and the FM tuner for around the same money. but a lot less storage space.

don't buy an iPod till the new models have been announced

There are no plans for a new model this half year, at most it will be a larger capacity nano.

I bought my son a Creative Zen Micro for Christmas but the headphone socket broke quite soon after (I now know this is a common problem). Yesterday we replaced it with a 30GB Ipod. I confess it's one of the most mind-boggling pieces of technology I've ever seen. It's the size of a cassette tape and at the rate he's going now he'll get about 700 albums on it. Sound quality is remarkable and it looks absolutely beautiful. What an amazing machine.

I had not seen the iPod video 30gig in the flesh until this weekend, I can't get over how thin it is, compared to my forty gig one which must be around 3 times thicker.

Interesting iPod article in Hi-Fi+ by Alan Sircom - he claims 1st Generation iPods are selling at a premium because they have the best sound. He also remarks tha latest version of iTunes is the best so far.

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
Interesting iPod article in Hi-Fi+ by Alan Sircom - he claims 1st Generation iPods are selling at a premium because they have the best sound. .

ROTF-
I'll have to see if I can find that article. It could very well be that the DAC and other innards of the 1G gave it potentially better soundon MP3 or AAC, but IMO, what gives the iPod a sound advantage over the competition is the Apple Lossless codec, which was not available until 3G.

Bas-
190 Euro sounds pretty stiff for a 20GB 3G iPod. The 3G was supplanted by the 4G about two years ago. So, your friend may be able to say that he only used it for six months, but it surely is more than six months in actual age. I bought my wife a 40 GB 3G for Christmas two years ago and at the time the retail price was $499. If I remember correctly, the 20 GB was $399, so your friend wants a little more than half the original price. I bought my own 4G iPod about six months ago when the 20 GB version was supplanted by the 30 GB "photo" version. When it was discontinued, it had a retail price of $299 and I bought mine new from Amazon.com for $239, days before the price was lowered once again to $229. I just give those prices so you can have something to compare to. Yet another consideration is that the internal battery would now be at least two years old, and likely holds significantly less charge than it did when new.

Norman

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
I had not seen the iPod video 30gig in the flesh until this weekend, I can't get over how thin it is, compared to my forty gig one which must be around 3 times thicker.

You're right, though I'm still using my 1st gen 10GB machine which works fine, but is the size of a small country in comparison to the new models.

Steve

How does the sound of Apple lossless files played from i-tunes on a pc compare with the same files played from an i-pod?

Thanks guys! After I looked at the Nano and the 4G 30gig I decided not to go for the 20gig. I have also looked at the new Sony models and these look and sound really good. Tough choice!

Regards, Bas

The sonys do look nice. The interface is not as good as iPod, it cannot show pictures or video, its heavier and bigger and per gig more expensive!

Other than that they do look cool.

Oh and apparently sony software connect is meant to be terrible. Although you could get it to work with iTunes through the back door if it allows drag and drop.

Mind you I am on about this particular sony:

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.action?section=e...03030&site=odw_en_GB

That's the one. It is a very nice looking piece of kit, but the new Connect player is a real pain to work with. If you buy into the Sony compression then you do get more storage space - but, and this is where it is starting to get me,
1.I have to delete everything on the player to get a firmware update
2. It took a whole evening to reload my music drive
3. Importation from the previous Sony software (sonicstage) was a magical mystery tour.
4.The menu navigation is not exactly intuitive.

If I were to do the same again - it would probably be iPod...
ciao
Gary

How are they in use though Gary? They are a lovely design, but I would probably want the smaller one.

Does you knowif it supports a direct import, i.e. drag and drop MP3 files onto it?

They do look as cute as you like. As I mentioned above, I bought a black one direct from Sony and it knocks iPod into a cocked hat on that front.

The direct import is what I'm going to try next. Sonicstage was fine with this for the bean. To be honest I got so fed up with the sync process for the new one with Connect player, I haven't tried it. I've downloaded iTunes and have saved a disc in MP3 format to see if I can get this to work with the Sony.
I'll let you know how I get on.
Hope this helps
ciao
Gary

Gary I don't think it will work directly with itunes. Firstly check out versiontracker.com and see if there is any bridging software which will allow it to work, other wise check out your itunes music folder where the MP3s should be nicely organised.

Ta for the advice. I guessed that it might not be the simplest task to undertake.
I realised that I didn't really answer your question fully.
Apart from the software, the unit is very different to navigate when compared to an iPod. It could be described as a little clunky. All the controls are physical - none of that funky scrolling around stuff. Once you get used to it though it's workable. I've simply loaded albums and haven't spent any time setting up playlists etc.. Having to take everything off for a firmware update is probably a blessing in disguise. I'll be a bit more ruthless about what I load back on.
The display is a very funky OLED. But. It is very difficult to see in daylight. The brightness has to be turned fully up and hence, battery life decreases. Also the gloss suface picks up finger marks v.easily and this does ocsassionally hamper readability.
TBH it is a solution from a hardware manfacturer rather than from an OS company (simplifies it a bit but I'm sure you get what I mean)
atb

My daughter has had an ipod for a while.

When the nano was announced I expressed an interest.

Then the Walkman MP3 was announced and Imentioned to my wife that it would make sense to listen to it before making a decision.

I then had a chance to listen to my brother-in-law's new nano - bizarrely at a family birthday party so I thought it better not to express my opinion too loudly.

I was disappointed!

...but on Christmas Day my wife produced a present that she had bought a number of months earlier that she was by that time expecting me to be dismissive of (not to mention ungrateful).

The nano is fantastic.

We bought my daughter the video one and it is OK.

Chris