<p>I'm considering purchasing an Ipod as an alternative to my mp3/cd player. So I have some questions. If those of you who are ipod owners or are familiar with the ipod and mini ipod could help me out that would be really great! thanks!</p>
<p>This is what I want to know:</p>
<p>-Pro's and Con's of the ipod in general. Is it worth spending that much money on it, or is it better to just have a regular mp3/cd player? </p>
<ul>
<li>Ipod vs. Mini ipod (pro's and Cons) which is better? why? </li>
</ul>
<p>My own list:</p>
<p>General: </p>
<p>Pro's: Its smaller than a cd player, less cumbersome, cuter/sleeker
cons's: expensive batteries, low battery life, bad anti skip protection (of so i hear- oh and that is REALLY important to me, seeing as i would be taking the ipod to the gym w/ me and on trips where there's bound to be bumpy roads and turbulence), hard to delete individual songs, difficult to load songs onto the ipod, the back easily scratches</p>
<p>Mini vs. Reg</p>
<p>Pros: The mini is more compact and can fit into my pocket or purse easily (i'm a girl btw), its sleek and sophisticated looking
Cons: Less storage capacity then reg ipod, worser antiskip protection (or so i hear) then reg ipod, easily scratches</p>
<p>If you have anything to add please do so!! thanks!</p>
<p>The mini ipod is retarded. The orginal one is plenty small, the mini ones just look dumb and give you about 1/5 the memory of the normal sized ones.</p>
<p>BTW, girls, are ipods are really bulky (I've only seen people w. mini ipods so i don't know..). Can u fit them into ur pocket, or into a small purse? or where it on ur belt (and have it look cute)? </p>
<p>How's the music quality on a reg ipod (want to get a 40 gig one)? Is it difficult to delete songs if u want to?</p>
<p>The iPod anti-skip is pretty great. It's most likely better than your CD player, but it's not as good as a flash based MP3 player (which has no moving parts). What the iPod does, is copy the songs you're listening to off of the hard drive and on to its 32 megabytes of RAM. Some people are afraid that if you jostle it while this copying is going on the hard drive could get messed up, but I've never heard of that happening (and the warranty is pretty good, if it does). I've gone jogging with my iPod (15 gig) a bunch of times, and it's never skipped. The mini might be nicer for the gym, because you can buy a pretty nifty arm band for it. If you have > 4 gigs of music, I'd definitely recommend the "iPod classic." I've gotten spoiled, and hate to be without my entire music library.</p>
<p>16 more GB for $50? When the first 4 GBs were $250? You do the math. Get a protector for the iPod if ur not dumb, otherwise it will look like crap. Not that it REALLY matters as long as it still plays the music well and you don't have trouble seeing the screen.</p>
<p>For me, the regular-size iPods are too bulky to carry around in the pocket and I've yet to figure out how I could ever get near filling up 20gb of space with music. I went over this same decision when I was buying an iPod and eventually chose the mini (though I really, really thought I wanted a regular iPod at first). I'm very happy with what I got. Unless you have a music store's worth of songs....what's the point of an iPod-brick?</p>
<p>The battery is expensive, but lasts between a year and a half and two years, so there's really no worries there. As for battery life, the 4th generation ones (current) have around 20 hours of battery life, and the mini has about 12 (im pretty sure on these, correct me if I'm wrong). For skip protection, I take mine with me running (run about 3 miles through the woods), and it doesn't skip. Even more impressive, it doesn't skip when I hack (hacky sack/ footbag, w/e). I have the non-mini, and recently bought an arm band for it, which I enjoy. However, the armband for the mini looks a bit more stable and stylish, as that seems to be a concern. Difficulty in loading /deleting songs is related to your computer literacy. If you are capable of navigating around your computer, you won't have any problems with the itunes format. You can also create on-the-go playlists, which are nice. The regular ipod only allows for one on-the-go, but the mini (i've heard) has functionality for more than one. The only thing that kinda irks me is that, yes, the back does scratch easily. The mini has a different coating and doesn't scratch much at all (definately a good thing). I also bring my ipod with me to school, and listen to it when I have study hall or anything like that, and just have it in my pocket. It fits in there quite nicely, unless you wear super-tight clothes, I guess. Here's how I'd break it down:
Regular:
Pros: more space than mini, more battery life
Cons: bigger, scratches more easily</p>
<p>Mini: smaller size, costs less, scratch resistant, different colors, more sex appeal?
Cons: less space, not quite as much battery life</p>
<p>I can't say anything about other mp3 players though. Sorry</p>
<p>thanks. Oh and your 3 mile runs, how long do they take usually? the website says it onlyhas 25 minutse of anti-skip.. also a friend of mine recently got an ipod-mini, she took it into the car w/ her adn as we were driving th thign skipped SOO MUCH . it skipped at almost every other song.</p>
<p>If you use an ipod, can u still downlaod music off programs that give u music for free (like kazaa, ares, winmx etc..)??? Or do you have to subscribe to itunes for the ipod to play music?</p>
<p>What does everyone think of the new iPod Shuffle, made public today by Apple? Is anyone going to buy a player that doesn't let you choose what song to play?</p>
<p>PS Yes, you can put illegally downloaded files on your iPod. But Kazaa is not as simple as it may seem...you've got to have a little bit of computer saviness to get good-quality stuff.</p>
<p>My three mile runs usually took like 20 minutes, but hacking (footbag / hacky sack), I usually am out there an hour or more. I'm not really sure what they mean when they talk about skip protection, cause I've never heard anyone mention skipping before. And the way itunes works is you 'load' a song into it. So if you download a music file from limewire, for example (I use limewire, any program would work), then you just double click the file and load it into itunes, and you're set. It can be located anywhere on your computer, and itunes doesn't actually make a duplicate or anything. It's similar to if you have winamp or anything like that: you load the songs in. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>the ipod shuffle is good for people who dont want to spend a lot of money and jump on the iPod bandwagon or perhaps they only feel like listening to x amount of songs and have a limited collection. But I have an iPod mini and its fine even though I think the bigger one looks better but 15,000 songs? cmon</p>
<p>For skip protection, it is the amount of music ahead that the iPod 'remembers'... So in case there is some shock the the HDD and the information can't get out, it is already stored in the memory on board. If you hack for an hour, it won't skip during that time because it will have time to 'rememory' everything...
And BTW I would think that the iPod in the car skipping is not the truth... I have a 1st generation iPod (has the least tech of them all) and I use it in the car all the time and it never skips...</p>
<p>My friend's Ipod must be a piece of broken ... or something.. because I was there with her and almost every song she played would skip. She said that it might be because the CD"s she burned the songs from were skipping and damaged, however I've copied songs from CD's that skipped and were scratched onto my computer and the skipping usually does not get copied. So It is my belief that it was her ipod... So no one else has experienced the ipod skipping? </p>
<p><strong><em>Another question...</em></strong>
- on one charge the ipod lasts for up to 12 hours.. that's 12 hours if it is constantly turned on? or 12 hours despite it being turned on or off?</p>
<ul>
<li>I want to take my ipod w/ me to Europe (this is mainly why I'm purchasing one) and I want to know if the plug for the charger is adaptable to European outlets ( I hear they're different from US ones)</li>
</ul>
<p>marsha-I'm guessing she was playing the iPod over her car stereo? If that's the case, she probably had a bad connection between the iPod + whatever was connecting the iPod to the car stereo (maybe an iTrip?). To skip an iPod, you would literally have to shake it for 25 straight minutes. Running for 25 minutes shouldn't make it skip, because there will be "smooth" moments while running where it can catch up.</p>
<p>The 12 hour battery life is for continuous play. The iPod battery doesn't drain much when it's turned off (although, if you leave it alone + off the charger for a week or so, it will drain noticeably).</p>
<p>You can buy (from Apple) adapters for European outlets that work with the iPod power supply. Or, you can buy an adapter for European outlets that works with any item.</p>
<p>And I think the iPod shuffle is pretty awesome. Even though I have a 15 gig iPod, I have a definite urge to buy one (one I'll hopefully be able to control, for my wallet's sake). The lack of a screen is a definite minus, but the thing is affordable, stylish, durable + easy to use. At $100/$150 it really widens the market for the iPod. I think "not having an iPod" will be the new "having an iPod" when it comes to being "cool," as with the iPod shuffle the white headphones will be damn near ubiquitous.</p>