Hello all, and please pay attention at the back.
I'm thinking of buying my sister a mini ipod for Chrimbo, and as my brother is Stateside at the moment, I was thinking he could pick one up cheaper over there.
My question is, does it have any regional differences that I should worry about or will it work just the same here? I imagine there will be an issue with power supply, but anyone know anymore?
mmm yeah i'm just sortof thinking of maybe considering the jump to mp3 player rather than carrying around CD's & scratching them & the whole jumpy scratchy thing...
how cheap is the cheapest, if you don't have broadband & mega ram, is it still work while ? i'm assuming you can still keep stuff on CD's & whack a large selection onto player via PC ? do you need wierd soft ware or does that all come with the player ?
do they work with old Ops systems like 98 ?
should i just stay in the dark ages & spend money on motorbikes instead ?
A mate of mine bought himself an ipod in the states a while ago, and as far as I know, he works it quite happily ovwr here.
I'll ask him when I see him tomorrow, if you haven't recieved a definitive answer by then.
you can download software, in fact ITunes is free. I copy all my new albums onto my hardrive using music-match and can listen to them on MP3. Its rather nifty. I dont currently have a MP3 player though.... so that not a huge help to James. But useful to Bou...
Slips
mmm i just think a small device stuck in a pocket & an ear peice could be a solution to my daily irritation levels.
Nice work, kids. Rac, lemme know what he says.
Cheers
James - no difference mate apart from the wrong plug socket lead for the charger, Go to http://apple.com/ipod
Be prepared for disappointing battery life. I bought myself an ipod mini a couple of months back, and while it is great (nearly 500 songs just now and rising), you're gonna spend alot of your time charging it up. It charges up to 80% capacity in an hour, so for people on the go it's pretty good, but it takes another 3 hours to charge the other 20% (dunno how that works, exactly).
Quality is good, it's easy to use, and everything comes in the box (itunes, incase you don't already have it, all the wires and stuff, etc).
The most annoying thing however, is that the usually useful click-wheel does NOT work if you have gloves on. Sure you can press the buttons underneath, but you can't scroll. Very annoying when you consider the weather heading our way.
But overall, I am very happy with my purchase. I would recommend it to anyone, although I'm sure there are better alternatives out there (certainly in the battery life department).
I'm sure there are better alternatives out there"
Sure there are, the bigger iPod... friend of mine swears by his and app. the way it operates is better than the mini.
The best alternative to iPod's are the players made by iRiver, better battery life and generally more versatile.
the creative techonogly MP3 player has a four gig larger memory,has an fm tuner and works as a voice recorder. comes in 10 differnt colours.
about to get a massive marketing blitz.
i think its cheaper as well. worth checking out the reviews on that one.
but its not an IPOD at the end of the day. so cool factor is a bit lower.
worth considering.
as for the charger be careful there, you will need a convertor unit to charge it up.got my son a GBA in the states in the summer, much cheaper with bundled goodies. but can only charge it with the convertor, which i had anyway. but worth noting.
I remember asking my grandparents for a Millenium Falcon for christmas, you know the Palitoy action figures one.
I got one but it was the Millenium Falcon model kit, nearly the same but not quite, and I was thoroughly pissed off - spoilt brat I know.
So if someone asks for an iPod for christmas, don'y buy inferior versions like iRiver and suchlike. The battery might last longer, the quality and handling may be far superior - but it's not an iPod and some teenagers would not be seen dead with anything less.
Be warned!
One of the iRiver players has a 40 gig hard drive. Who has that much music?
sony maybe ?
anyone else no hope.
I have about 60Gb of music taken from my original CDs...
As for iPod, it's more than just a "coolness" factor?it's way more _usable_ than the competition, and, for me, that's what makes it worth the extra.
As for the mini, depending on the state you purchase it in, you'll save between 25 and 35 quid at the current exchange rate, but have to hope customs don't see it on the way back in. In the UK, the things are very rare, but yesterday, Jigsaw24.com had about 40 silver ones.
Indeed,
A friend of mine has just bought one of the new Sony net walkmen. He was winding me up about the battery life compared to my 3g ipod (and 8 hours is crap - the new ones 12 hour life is all I can see you'd need).
So I asked him what it was like to use. He admitted that it was awful. The interface on the ipod is just so...nice that it's worth the extra.
As for the US mini. The only difference is the plug. However Apple sell a travel kit that has replacement plugs for each area of the world.
You could pick one up from the new Apple Store in London tomorrow...
Dan
Link: Apple Regent Street
mmm i just think a small device stuck in a pocket & an ear peice could be a solution to my daily irritation levels.
No, what you need Bou, is to go the whole hog and get yourself a Fony(TM) headcase.
I have a 40gb iRiver and it is the most perfect thing in the world. It is so good you don't even feel the need to argue with people convinced that an iPod is better, just sit back smug and absolutely content.
As for who has that much music, i've put about 300 albums on it and it is only half full.
Nice work, kids. Rac, lemme know what he says.
Cheers
Everything's good, James.
It'll work alright. You can either get a thing called (if I remember correctly) firewire, which will connect to your computer, or just a normal socket adaptor so you can plug it into the wall.
But basically, yes, the software etc works perfectly, so buy away at your cheap i-pod.
If Amazon hadn't ballsed things up with the courier service, I'd have my shiny new Zen Micro (made by creative) by now. 5GB, ?180, removable battery with a 12 hour lifespan, and you don't need XP or USB 2.0.
Instead, I'm in an E-mail war to find out where the bloody thing is.
mmm, so some folks are saying i-pod is the best, others saying iriver...which i'd never heard of, ive been looking at cheaper catalogue mp3 players & they look a bit ropey & are still way out of price range..
i'm thinking jan sales.. so whats the best cheapy out there?
Try going to apple.com/uk at 10am sharp on a Wednesday. It often has refurb iPods, which are, to all extents and purposes, new, but have up to 40% off. Sometimes they are previous generation models, but they can be a bit of a bargain.
As for the best "cheapy", you really do get what you pay for these days with music players. The cheap options are usually smart-media-based, which means they have very limited storage compared to hard-drive players.
With regards to iPod vs iRiver, there really is no comparison in terms of usability. The iPod wins hands down with regards to interface and simplicity. However, iRiver plays more formats (if that's your bag).
Amazon are doing the Creative Zen Extra 30 gb for ?169.99 - which has a higher storage capacity, longer battery life and if What Hifi is to be believed better sound quality (well by the low standards of any compressed Mp3 type format) than the Ipod.
too big then the Creative Zen Micro 20gb for the same price.
I wouldn't worry too much about Creative - although apple take the credit for the hard drive based jukebox Creative were amongst the first (if not the first) to introduce these back in the late 90's (the Nomad and others). Bet they wished they'd painted it white. Iriver - probably better know for their solid state mp3 players - the ifp 180t 128mb is a superb piece of kit.
"?169.99"
YEEEP !!
so i guess i'll be sticking with the tescos ?12.99 cd player for a while then !