Ipod - Buying it in the USA

Posted by: Naheed on 10 January 2005

Guys - i'm planning to buy one via the USA, i understand the warranty and all is global, but is the power pack etc... UK compatible, and is there anything else i sound know ?

many thanks in advance

naheed. . .
Posted on: 10 January 2005 by Jim Lawson
The Apple site has a great FAQ for this sort of thing.http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/

[This message was edited by Jim Lawson on Mon 10 January 2005 at 22:25.]
Posted on: 10 January 2005 by Eddie Pugh
The power supply is universal but you will need to pop off the folding US flat pins when in the UK and plug in a double eight ended power cable with a UK plug on the other end. The sort of thing that plugs into some transistor radios or some laptop pwer blocks. You could of course use a travel adaptor thing .

Eddie
Posted on: 10 January 2005 by Two-Sheds
I'm in Canada and bought an iPod here and have travelled to the uk with it and had no problems at all. One thing to note, don't waste money on apple's universal adapter kit for the power supply it's a rip off. As Eddie mentioned you can use a double eight power cable and they are much cheaper than the adapter kit
Posted on: 10 January 2005 by Camlan
Naheed

Bought one in the states in September. Only difference is the power pack. I didnt know that you could easily alter the apple supplied power supply but bought an adaptor from Radio Shack for $8 which does the job fine. In any event the ipod will charge through computer connection as well as mains.

No other problems with the US spec although I did need to upgrade my PC with a USB 2.0 port to make the ipod sync. My PC was only 18 mon ths old so don't assume that yours will be fitted with this because it's recent. Doesnt cost much (about £20) and easy to fit but probably worth checking now if you want to go straight from the box.
Posted on: 11 January 2005 by Squonk
Double check the warranty - my UK purchased Ipod is not covered here in Oz by the warranty - you have to pay to get the warranty upgraded to global cover.

Cheers
Adrian
Posted on: 11 January 2005 by Roy Donaldson
Hi there,

There are 2 main differences between the US and the EU (UK) variants of the iPods.

* Power supply.

The PSU provided is a global supply and will connect to any voltage, so you won't have any problems with that. However, the plug is a US style 2 pin connector. So, you will either need a US to UK convertor, or you can pop the US plug out and use a figure-of-8 mains lead to connect in. The Apple universal power connectors kit is nice, but a bit expensive at about 40-50 bucks.

* Volume limiting.

This is one advantage of buying a US iPod. The EU variants of the iPod have an artificial volume limiter for max volume on them. This is difficult to change. If you buy a US iPod, this is not there and you can play it as loud as you like.

Roy.
Posted on: 11 January 2005 by garyi
The volume is very easy to change, select all the tracks and then right click to 'get info'

Click yes if it asks you if you want to multi change tracks.

In the box that appears there is an 'overdrive' slider, put it up to 140%.

Click ok.

Plug the ipod in for the fix.
Posted on: 12 January 2005 by Naheed
Many thanks for all the advice guys, excellent

I didn't realise there was a picture version as well

I've been looking at how much I'll save buying from the USA, with a favourable exchange rate, but the savings are not that good (£60 on the 20GB and £90 on the 40GB), I guess the USA prices are higher

naheed. . .