Electronics : Apple iPod - 30GB - Black [video playback] MA146B/A

Rating: - Cool, but...
This is a great little media player. easy to use and looks cool, but the battery is awful. i have to charge it EVERY day which is a pain to say the least...

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Rating: - Great Ipod
Good points - style, quality, price is not much more than some that dont have videos or anywhere near 30gb memory. I have 2000 songs, two seasons of simpsons, 3 series of south park, 3 series of bottom, and 3 films and it has barely ate into the memory.

If you want the best out of memory and owning and sharing videos you have to know what you are doing on the internet. I find the best way is to rip and convert everything yourself with programs such as audiograbber which is free. The Itunes store is pointless and a dob.

However the battery life on mine is terrible. the product decription says 14 hours for music and 4 hours for videos. In reality expect about an hour and half for videos and probably 5-6 for music. When the battery is dead for videos, it increases when you start playing music instead, so i have not had it switch itself off.

portable music players NEVER live up their battery life but this time its just completely lying and not even a third as good as it states. Though the ipod overall is mint to the point where i dont even mind that my trains are late every day.

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Rating: - I pod you pod
Oh man! This is so much fun. If you remember the original 'walkmans' with there battery chewing, noisy cassette players, then the latest generation of Apples Ipod will make you marvel at the technological advances we have all taken in the last 30 years. If you are of the younger generation, you'll still be blown away. The new Ipod is just soooooo nice, so sylish and so easy to use.

You don't get as much control playing your music on the Ipod as you do if using Itunes on your pc, but who cares. Everything you need is there.

It took me less than 10 minutes to unpack my Ipod, install the necessary software, download several hundred songs, and start playing. Is it that easy.

One note of caution however. If you buy the 30 GB, you probably won't actually get the full 30. Mine only has 28 GB for some reason, and I have heard others say the same. At the same time, battery life seems to be a hit or miss thing. If you are lucky you'll get a battery that lasts days. If not, you might be stuck with a limited play time. A final concern is Apple's refusal to offer a standard 2 year guarentee. Why not - what are they afraid of?

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Rating: - Contains DRM
Everyone should be aware that all Apple music software & hardware contains something called DRM, which heavily restricts your ability to transfer and copy your own files.

To understand what DRM is all about, imagine you've just seen a funny film at the cinema and call your mate to tell him the best line. However, your mobile is listening to your conversation and censors out the line so your friend will have to pay to see the movie himself if he wants to hear the line.

This may sound ludicrous but that is essentially the principle of DRM. It prohibits you from reasonably distributing something you have paid for, just in case the companies can squeeze a few more pennies out of you.

If you have a genuine reason to own an iPod (other than "it has the most marketing so must be good"), and you really don't mind owning a player that tells you how to use it, then by all means get one. But considering you can get DRM-free players such as The iRiver or the Neuros player, what's the point?

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Rating: - Good
You only really get your money's worth if you intend to put alot of videos onto the iPod. I thought you could put your own music vidoes which have been downloaded from other sites and not iTunes, but i soon found out you need to buy the videos from iTunes. But i still have great uses for it. I have stored alot of photos which can be useful and i probably wont have to delete any songs for a while. I have synchronized 15 albums and it only uses up less than 1Gb!!!!!