First off, the iTunes software is crap, and Musicmatch is even worse. Whats that? Oh yes, I want you to transfer three songs out of the almost 40 gigs I have selected, and then stop for no reason! That just licks my kitten!

Oh yea, and for some reason that hinky iTunes software wouldnt install for me, so I had to waste my time formatting my main hdd and reinstalling windows XP, just to get it to work, and then it was STILL a P.O.S. that wouldnt cooperate.

The sound quality from this thing (even at my insane, music nerdy bitrates) was crap. A VBR mp3 at ~270 kbps should not sound like its being played through the speakers of a 92 Saturn. Even with the EQ on, the sound quality isnt impressive. Not as good as my trusty $40 CD walkman.

Basically, if you own a PC heres something I suggest: CD-Rs and a CD wallet. You can get a good discman for $50 that doesnt skip. Heck, you could even get CD-RWs, and then you could rewrite them! (eh, I hate CD-RWs, but hey, its a thought)

Like I said, its a vanity item. Something that rich people can spend $500 on to make themselves trendy. Its not useful, its not easy to use, its not pretty, its not intuitive.

I seriously think these things are some kind of mind control device that Steve Jobs created. They wait till youre asleep, then, using the crappy headphones as legs, turn into a 40 gigabyte suppository. It attatches to your brain, and then makes you tell people about how "totally, like, cool!" it is while youre on your way to get a low carb tofu wrap after your workout.

If you own a Mac and need to make yourself even more metrosexual, then keep on truckin, I guess. But I suggest the iPod mini. At least then you can have a pink worthless piece of crap.

Oh and by the way, Apples customer support... what customer support? Oh thats right, you have to pay for that, too. For $500, Jobs should come to your house and set the darn thing up for you. It only cost me $700 to build my whole PC.

The battery on my Ipod gives me about 7 hours of listening pleasure (less if you set the backlight to come on when you access song info). While I have had drop-out on song endings this is easily corrected by reloading the track into the Ipod. I did purchase an auxiliary battery pack for really long trips but have only had to use it twice.

The sound quality is fantastic when recording at 224 kbps. I have heard things through the Ipod that I had not noticed through my home stereo. And if you purchase mini-speakers for the Ipod you can acheive a bookshelf stereo system with minimal space and still be able to carry it in your luggage on trips.

On the whole, the Ipod is great and I look forward to many more years of Ipod use.

Cant rate iPod. Still waiting for the cable to arrive.

But there are a few problems:
1. The exterior scratches very easily. Use the carrying case it comes with.
2. The battery supposedly lasts eight hours, but that seems to only be if you let it play continuously. If youre jumping around from song to song or have the backlight on, the battery life is much shorter.
3. At one point, all the songs on my iPod disappeared for whatever reason. I did, however, have all the music in my iTunes library from when I first imported it on the Pod, so it only took a few minutes to re-import the songs. It was a hassle, but really no big deal. I would, however, suggest purchasing the extended warranty if you can.

Overall, the iPod is definitely worth the money, especially if youre tired of lugging around and keeping track of all those CDs like I am. Id buy it again.

You can read a hundred other reviews about its ease of use, its multi-functionality, its sleek design, its intuitive interface. Heres some real world Q&A after my first month with my iPod:

"Do I really need 40 GB?"

If youre like me, you do. I have somewhere around 1300 CDs in my collection, and Ive already loaded 6298 songs onto the iPod. Of course, I dont listen to them all, but the great thing about the iPod is you start to remember old songs youd totally forgotten about. Remember Arcadias "Election Day"? Or MC 900 Ft Jesus "If I Only Had a Brain"? Or Xs "White Girl"? Or Big Audio Dynamites "Rush"? Neither did I, but put the iPod on random shuffle, and its about the best radio station you ever heard.

"I download a lot of music. What about that?"

If you download a lot of music ILLEGALLY (tsk), then you need to go through a re-tag your MP3s so that the iPod can read them. This is almost a fulltime job. I recommened "TAG & RENAME" which I got from download.com for free. You can rename huge batches of MP3s at a time, and if you have the full album track list, it intuitively tags them for you. It still took me WEEKS. But in searching my hard drive, Im finding things that I didnt even know I downloaded. Like, why did I download the X-Rated version of Duran Durans "Girls on Film" video three times?? Who knows.

"I want to run/excercise/carry it places. Shouldnt I get the mini?"

I thought this too, but the 40 GB iPod is the size of a deck of cards. It weighs less than a Zippo lighter. Its slimmer than my cell phone, and slides right into my hip pocket. Screw the mini. Get the big boy, you sissy.

"What accessories do I need?"

The 40 GB comes with the dock, which lets you connect it right to the auxilliary jack on your stereo, as long as you have a cord, which you can buy at Radioshack for $5. And you can use any old cassette adapter to hook the iPod into the stereo in your car. You dont need to buy anything special here. A few missing niceties would be a decent manual (the manual it comes with is terrible; Im going to have to get one of the "Missing Manual" books). Also, the case it comes with is great for clipping it to your hip, but doesnt allow access to the buttons. Oh, and the headphones are terrible. Buy new headphones too.

"My harddrive is smaller than 40 GB. Since the iPod autosyncs with iTunes, does this mean I cant fill my harddrive?"

I wondered about this when I first bought the iPod. My harddrive is only 20GB, and on its default setting, iTunes synchronizes whatever songs are on your iPod to whatever tunes are on your harddrive. To get around this, all you need to do is turn off the default and drag and drop songs manually. It works much better.

And in order to simplify everything, I ripped all of my CDs as MP3s first, and then burned the MP3s to data CDs. This cab be a LENGTHY process (like...months). But then you can just load the iPod directly from your CDRs. And should your iPod ever crash, you can later reinstall all of MP3s effortlessly, without having to rip all of your CDs again.

For the first couple of months, you may feel like youre working on your iPod in every spare moment: ripping CDs, editing MP3 tags, loading songs, editing playlists. But the payoff is so totally freaking worth it. I LOVE MY IPOD!

My friend bought hers last year. She saved up for it and was excited when she got it. A month later her files did not want to save into her Ipod. She returned it and got a new one.

A month later either the program or the Ipod itself deleted every single song she had, not once, but twice. She returned it. The tech person at the counter suggested getting another one and admitted to liking the Ipod, but his friend returned his three times. My friend wondered about it, but got another Ipod seeing as how she could only use the store credit, and her Ipod was around 5 or 6 hundred dollars, while the other MP3s were around 2 or 3 hundred (she couldnt get a lower priced MP3 and get the rest of money).

So, she got another Ipod, about six months later she decided to clean it and put it on lock. When she finished, she couldnt shut it off, reset it or stop it. It kept playing, so she had to wait for the battery to die. She took it too the tech and said they had to ship it and she wouldnt see it for 2 weeks.

For the first month of playing with her Ipod it was fun, but as time went on, we noticed how crappy it was. Sure it looks sleek and nice, and has some nice features, but is its quality as nice as its pretty features?

The Good: For the average person, iTunes is a pretty good and simple way to create & manage your music collection. The ipod does fit in your pocket (i.e. front jeans pocket) & is an easy way to carry a lot of music w/ you while in the car, at the gym, etc & frees up time & energy from fussing w/ CDs while on the go. The sound quality is pretty good out of the box....it might not be audiophile quality, but the ipod is more about convenience & if you want to upgrade to better headphones you can. iTunes (on the Mac platform) rips tunes extremely well (i havent noticed any glitches yet) & Apples propietary format, AAC, does sound better than mp3. The remote is very helpful to have, so that you dont need to pull it out of youre pocket to change songs or volume. It is easy to hold in one hand & maneuver the controls. Being able to store other things (address info, notes, etc.) & use it as a firewire drive is an added bonus. Not having too many interfaces to the iPod might seem to reduce its portability/usability, however it is also probably the reason why it is more durable than other mp3 players. More connectors of different types would mean that there are more things that could go wrong & Firewire connectivity is better than USB as it dispenses with the need for making separate connections for data & for power. The 1 year warranty is better than many other mp3 players & the ipod is pretty durable.

The Bad: 1. No Gapless playback. Ipod & iTunes cant play an album without introducing a gap in between songs. Annoying in live recordings & concept albums and dj mixes become ulistenable. The workarounds are either to use the cross fade feature (which overlaps the 2 songs being played) or to import the whole CD as one track (making an extremely large track that taxes the ipods memory buffer & battery, but neither option is satisfactory.

2. Actual battery life is even shorter than advertised. Unless you use a car to go everywhere (& by a car recharger) or have access to an outlet & carry a dock with you, the ipod will deplete its charge before you get back home.

3. It does scratch easily. If youre buying it for the pristine glossy look, youll soon learn to get over this after the first scratch. The more you use it, the more it scratches.

4. Battery indicator doesnt work. Some times it shows a full charge, but then falls to 0 quickly, other times it shows no charge but plays for more than an hour afterwards.

5. Ear buds & remote tangle easy. There is no way to store these things without them getting completely tangled & you have to spend 5 minutes untagling them before you can listen to your ipod......every time you want to listen.

6. The remote control clip is not well designed. Functionally its fine, but the gripper is too small to really attach it to anything & it comes off w/ the slightest amount of activity & so you get an extremely long cord falling to your feet on the treadmill...

7. No way to record with the iPod itself. You can use a third party attachment....but you have to pay out....and apparently the quality of these recordings are not very good...or am I the only one whod like to record a conversation on the fly?

8. No support for FLAC or Ogg vorbis. Many audiophiles & music lovers have already copied music to these formats because of ability for gapless playback or for the wonders of open source.

9. No way to flag poor music files. Using the music rating feature to do this is a workaround, but cuts into the usefulness of using the music rating feature to rate your music. In fact there is no input ability at all, outside of rating your music.

8. Itunes needs significant improvements to accommodate the more serious music lover or archiver if it is ever to become the sole Application for music in ones digital hub. Allowing a song to be tagged with several music genres, allowing for multiple musical libraries (i.e. one for my archived music in lossless format, another for those files I convert to AAC to listen on my ipod), having different options (converting music into different formats, burning different kinds of cds etc.) without having to change Preferences all the time, having information on the actual CDs you own (not just the music file info) or whether you converted the file to digital from an LP & how or other cataloging information that would eliminate the need for creating an Excel database....and I could go on with about 100 other features that it could have, but you get the point.

Unfortunately, the battery life could be better. I also have a complaint about the syncability of the iPod with multiple computers. The ease-of-use is also a downside, as the iPod does so much for you, if you do something unexpected, like sync with two computers, the results can tend to be unpredictable.

Nevertheless, the quality of the sound (it seems like you can get a louder output on the iPod than other players, which may contribute to the shorter, but acceptable, battery life) is better than other players. The size and ergonomics are the best. The price is a little higher, but justifiable considering the benefits.

Finally, my recommendation is to understand the players downfalls before you purchase. Realize that this is a hard drive and even though it is better at standing up to a beating than others do not shake it vigorously, throw it, drop it, or put it in water. Just like any piece of electronics, especially those with precisely moving parts, it will break. I do not normally advocate buying a warranty, but in this case BUY THE LONGEST WARRANTY YOU CAN. If you use your iPod or any other similar player, the chances of you dropping it or it breaking from normal wear-and-tear are high. The warranty will be cheaper than replacing the unit. With all of those warnings etched upon your mind, go ahead and make the purchase. It will drastically increase the personal value of your music collection by making it more useful than ever to you. You will not regret this purchase.

Some final words:
Go for it, you really wont regret the purchase. The iPod is a timeless thing. The iPod really opened my eyes to music. I now listen to a wider variety of music. With iTunes, purchasing songs you like can never be easier. Once again, GO FOR IT!! NO REGRETS!!

Functionally, the iPod is easy to use right out of the box. You wont find anything easier. Add ons finish the case for buying an iPod: Numerous third party products make this the player you have to have. Check out the custom FM players available for an iPod --no dongles anymore! consider the iTunes Music store, 99 cent songs and its legal. Numerous options for cases, boom boxes, home audio, remote controllers, the list goes on.

One last thing about using the extra space for a HD. It is easy to setup this extra space as a backup drive to copy critical information and documents.

The Apple site is full of advice on how to prolong the life of the battery.

To purchase the ipod is to purchase a very fragile pet with a very short lifespan that is very tempermental.

Warning: This is a rich persons disposable status symbol and little more.

2nd Problem:
I played with an ipod and became so frustrated with selecting the correct song that I gave up on it. There are constant complaints about how easy it is to hit the buttons and to affect the ipod accidently. There are warnings at the Apple site that it is easily turned on with incidental touching and that is one of the reasons that the battery wears out too soon.

Hopefully competition will force Apple to improve this device. It is the highest priced disposable music device that I have ever seen.

40 GBs well I am now at 5.5 Gigs after two weeks of having it.

I am still filling it with my audible.com library of the past four years.... all that Austen, Tolsoy, Dickens, Henry James as well as the modern day stuff like Robert Ludlum, AS Byatt, Pat Conroy, todays NY Times and Wall St Journal etc.

Plus I already put on there every music CD I own - about 260 of those.

iTunes permits single song purchase so you can fill in gaps in your music collection more cheaply.

I did not find the software that tough to set up and use and I use WINDOWS. iTunes upgraded again in Spring of 04 and that version seems good. Get an action jacket to protect your investment and a car power cord. Long driving distances in the pacific northwest demand SOMETHING to listen to (to stay awake)and IPod 40gig has a BOATLOAD of space. You can customize a number of different playlists. All drag and drop...easy. I made one to travel from Boise to Baltimore (a four day trip with many flights) and back never play the same content twice. I was never bored. Lovely.

Once the price point of the 15 gig drops about 60 bucks these iPods will be on lots of christmas lists I think.

Ive owned all three 40GB players available today: Creative Zen, RCA Lyra, Apple iPod. This is the review I wish I had read before I started shopping. It was a originally more comprehensive but I had to trim it to 1000 words.

For the most part, the Creative Zen has the best features of the three, as well as the best price. It sounds like a no brainer except for the fact that these things break like crazy! If you read some of the other reviews on here, youll see a few people mention that their headphone jack shorted out when they dropped the player....well mine shorted out while the player was sitting on my desk not moving at all. I dont know a single person who bought one of these players and didnt have their headphone jack malfunction! Many reviewers suggest buying an extended warranty because of this problem. I would most definitely agree with them on that one, but personally I dont have the patience to wait a few weeks every time the player decides to stop working. Those warrantees are supposed to be purchased just in case something goes wrong; not because something most likely will! The Lyra from the moment it came out of the box to the moment it stopped working for no apparent reason, four hours later, was on the whole a piece of junk. That said...on to the comparisons.

PRICE: As just about every anti-iPod reviewer mentions, THE IPOD IS MORE EXPENSIVE AND DOES PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING. The iPod is basically the BMW of mp3 players...the other mp3 player work like, and cost about as much as a Kia. They all do basically the same thing, but the cheaper ones are cheaper for a reason!

SIZE: All three players are smaller than a walkman, so its kind of silly to even discuss this, but it seems to be a hot topic in the other reviews. From largest to smallest the players are ranked as follows: Lyra, Zen, iPod. The Lyra is the only one of the three which will not fit easily in your pocket. It is the widest /longest /heaviest of the bunch, and personally, I hated the way it felt in my hand. The Zen and the iPod were both a pleasure to hold.

CONTROLS/NAVIGATION: iPod gets first place here simple because its touch sensitive navigation wheel allows you to get from the first album in your collection to the last in seconds and it stops on a dime anywhere in between. The Zens controls are very good however it takes longer to scroll through your entire collection and when it really starts moving fast, it continues scrolling after you release the button sometimes skipping past another 50-75 albums! The Lyra had decent navigation, but the buttons had to be pushed more than once before they responded almost half of the time! The Zen and the iPod can be operated easily with one hand.

PLAYLISTS/SONG RATING: The Zen wins here without a doubt. It is the only one of the three where you can create, edit (even while its playing) and SAVE multiple play lists on the player itself without connecting it to a computer. The iPod allows you to make ONE play list on the fly, which cannot be edited or saved.

The Lyra allows you to tag songs you like or dont like and it makes play lists of each...yes, it makes a playlist of songs that you tell it you DO NOT LIKE...if that doesnt explain whats wrong with this product, nothing will! The iPod allows you to rate songs 1-5 stars on the player, and then make a play list automatically based on those ratings when connected to a computer.

BATTERY: Again, Zen is the winner here. Not only does it offer a battery that lasts 14 hours instead of iPod and Lyras 8 hour batt. it is also the only player of the three where you can remove and replace the battery when it deteriorates with age as all rechargeables do. It should be noted that the battery times I listed are the official times given by the manufacturers. The Zen actually lasts about 10 hours the other two go between 5 and 6 before needing a charge.

SCREEN: The Zen not only has the biggest screen of the bunch, it also scrolls the album title in the directory screen allowing you to see the whole thing instead of just the first few words.

TRANSFER TO PLAYER: All three units use USB 2.0, the iPod also can be used with Firewire.

TRANSFER FROM PLAYER: The Zen allows you to transfer music freely from your player to any computer loaded with its software. The iPod does not allow this however third party software that can be purchased and used to pull songs from the iPod. In all honest, the Lyra broke before I could find out if you can pull songs off of it.

SOFTWARE: iTunes is easy to use and offers tons of ways to organize your music. Creative Media Manager takes a lot of getting used to but is decent once you figure it out. Musicmatch, which comes with the Lyra is garbage. It`s slow, difficult to figure out at times, and constantly badgers you to buy the upgrade to its premium version.

EXTRAS: The only one that actually has extra features is the iPod which comes loaded with 4 different games, the ability to read text documents that are stored on the hard drive on the players screen, a date book, and an address book. The Lyras ONLY advantage over the other players is the fact that it comes with a complete car kit (charger/tape adapter)....which is pretty nice, but useless when the player turns itself into a paperweight after just a few hours. All three players come with a case....iPods is the only one which does not give you access to the players controls when its in the case.

Hope this helped.

[A MONTH LATER] After a month of owning my iPod, I now realize that iTunes is the weak link in the whole equation. The iPod is a superstar, behavior-changing product. iTunes is very basic and doesnt have the kind of robust organizational functionality one would expect.

Think about it: you have 10,000 plus songs to manage and organize, but very little database functionality beyond basic searching and sorting. Once youve got your 500 plus CD collection in there, plus all the music youve downloaded, creating a large playlist is an existential pain. You spend half your time searching around through a seemingly endless directory of titles, artists and albums. Id love it if iTunes asked you if you wanted multiple copies of the same song in a playlist. Id love it if I could click on a song and find out which playlists Id put it in. Sadly, none of that exists.

In a world in which Apple is thought of as being ahead of the curve, iTunes seems a bit behind. That said, Im sure they know it and are working to improve it.

So now here is my advice. If you have a ton of music and you do not intend to exercise with it the iPod is a good choice. BUT if you ever intend to run or workout you might encounter the issues I faced. If at all possible borrow a friends iPod first, so you can get a good feeling and comfort level with the device (I know, good luck getting a friend to let you borrow theirs). I had the iPod for less than a week and fortunately Amazon did take it back (kudos to Amazon for such great service). Now I am looking into another solid-state player. The Rio Cali and Chiba are leading my list (they are expandable to 768MB - no iPod but a lot of music nonetheless). I just wish they had the same form factor as the Rio Nitrus.

A couple of caveats: (1) if you have a PC, make sure to buy the firewire/UBS2 connection when you buy your iPod, (2) it does scratch easily, but there are different types of cases to choose from, especially on the Apple Store website, (3) when loading cds onto iTunes, some songs will come out with a slight pause in them if they elide into the next song on your cd; make sure to choose an advanced option on iTunes for joining songs together, then the pause will disappear. These are minor annoyance for such a great idea in portable music listening.

I then purchased the Belkin microphone and have been recording business meetings. For my staff, I then produce CD copies of the recordings to ensure we are all on the same page. I have also purchased iTrip that transmits via an FM signal whatever I would like to play from my library of available media through an FM radio. This feature is especially useful when traveling and in rental cars where local stations cant be counted on to provide the music I like to listen to (I have also used it in my own car in place of my 6 CD disk changer). Finally, I found free shareware Outpod and have imported my contacts from my Microsoft Outlook into my iPod.

The functionality of this device amazes me everyday. Well worth the investment if you are going to utilize its functionality to the fullest.

How many times have you changed the discs in the trunk of your car? Ive had the same discs since buying my car 2 years ago. In the car, I now use the iPod, a tape adapter and ProClip to hold the unit. This set up works and sounds great and takes about a second to hook up. Those with a CD player should get it wired --- the FM transmitters are marginal.

I have had zero trouble with the iPod and found AppleTunes easy to use on my PC --- Speaking of PCs, I liked the iPod so much that I bought a G4 iBook for my wife. Yeah, theres a bit of a premium paid for Apple products, but they get the fact that some people enjoy quality and design that surprises and delights them. To me, thats worth a few extra bucks in the land of ugly boxes.

Thumbs up to the iPod and to Apple.

Somebody who is watchful will no doubt notice that about a year ago I gave a 30 Gigabyte iPod an enthusiastic review. Now I am on my fourth iPod, and I thought I might drop in with some summary comments. In case you think that I am a wealthy man who keeps an iPod in every room, his office, and the car, let me assure you that I still own only one, but it has gone through several phases.

For starters, I still believe that the iPod, with its technology and playing ability, is still the MP3 player to beat - when it is working. Both the iPods own software and the desktop packages for the PC and the Mac are excellent. The machine is capable of excellent sound, and has additional features that make it surprisingly versatile for both the casual and professional user. The number of add on gadgets is breathtaking. In a word, it is the perfect tech-toy. Well, almost...

How did I manage to get up to 4 iPods. Well, the first revealed that the stereo plug is a bit more fragile than it should be. The second worked for almost a year and then, one day, translated itself to heaven, leaving me with a functional external disk drive, but no music. This second was replaced with the 40 Gigabyte model. Unfortunately, this iPod revealed a design flaw where the sides could separate in cold weather. Note that cold weather in this case consists, for my iPod, of the short walk from my car to my office and back again. Thanks to the wonders of extended warrantees this process has been relatively painless. I am now hoping that I have discovered the last design flaw and can look forward to a few years of peace and music.

Obviously, the lesson here is that iPods need more care than you might think they would. Or they do in Michigan at any rate. Or they do if they belong to me. Note that I have steadfastly refused to give up the ghost and switch to a different brand. This is because, when it is working, it is amazing. So good that the irritation is almost worth it. Another thing I have discovered is that the Mac software does a marvelous job of reloading the music files onto my iPod each time.

My suggestion is that you carefully assess your ability to treat a piece of hardware with disciplined kindness before making the investment. Or you can determine if you earn enough to afford to continually renew the warranty. If you are the careful sort, the iPod will become an irreplaceable companion. If you arent then take the necessary steps to make sure it is a replaceable one, because you will miss it when it is gone.

About three months into the life of my XTRA, the headphone jack broke. After reading many other reviews out there, It seems like this is a regular problem. If it were not for this reoccurring issue, the XTRA would definitely be the way to go.

After returning my XTRA, I had no choice but to settle with an iPod. I was aprehensive to say the least, but since I personally knew some people that swear by their iPod, I decided to give it a whirl.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of USB 2.0 compatibility straight out of the box. I was forced to buy a $20 cable that would make it work with my computer. This was disappointing since I just spent $500 on a new machine that wouldnt work.

After I found a store that carried the cable, it was off to the computer to download the music to the player. This is where the majority of the problems came to pass. First, the software made my computer crash (I own a top o the line PC that was custom built). When I finally got the software to work, I quickly loaded all of the songs onto the player. The transfer only took a few minutes, but I noticed that it completely drained the battery life.

After leaving it to charge overnight, I took it to school. The first song I ever tried to play froze the iPod. The first song! It worried me, but I read the User Guide and found out how to reset the player. Since then, I havent had much of a problem, however, sometimes iTunes will not rip cds properly. It is a quality purchase, but when Creative comes up with a new and improved Zen (Keep a look out for the Zen Portable Media Player), you can bet that my allegience wont stick with Apple.

What should be of concern to those in the market for this player are two things:

1. Price to Value: This is a 40GB player, your average song size is somewhere near 3MB at 128kbps playback quality (very good for headphones), that means this little guy can hold somewhere near 14,000 songs!!!! If you have even half that many tracks Ill bet the RIAA is staking your house out right now (look for snipers on your neighbors roof). I have the 10GB player (but ive bought a 20GB and a 40GB for friends) and its way more than enough for my songs. Also, keep in mind that although the difference isnt huge, there is a noticable weight increase as you go up in GB size.

2. Battery life: You may not be aware of this, but there is some consumer litigation going on between iPod users and Apple. They claim that the battery on the iPod is engineered to die within 1.5 years (and they dont replace). The battery on my 5GB player died before 1 year. When that happened, I took it back to my computer retailer and they gave me full credit towards the purchase of an upgrade. Well, when I went in to buy another player as a gift, turns out that program has been discontinued. Ill bet its because these things were coming back so much for that reason. There is an interesting article on Popular Science that shows you how to change the battery (not for engineering neophytes or anyone that doesnt want to void the warranty), and even a reference in that article of a service thatll do it for you.

So, if youre rich, or really intend to use it for its full features (can serve as a portable hard disk), consider the 20 or 40GB, a year and a half of high quality enjoyment may be enough. If your like most everyone though, consider the much lower priced 5 or 10GB.

Once youre an owner, check out the Apple owned iTunes site (this sounds like a commercial but...). They work phenomenal together.

I have a PC, if you do to, make sure you buy the PC version. Also, its much easier if your PC has a Firewire port (kind of like a USB port but wider and shorter). If it doesnt, and youre not computer savvy, you might want to avoid iPod (as painful as that is to say) because youll have to get a special card for insertion into your computer (not that easy to do).

Daily use is great. The keys themselves are heat sensitive, which is cool (no pun..), but can be a pain when you get the song you want, go to put in your pants, and accidently touch a key. Other than that, flawless. Very intuitive buttons, very intuitive menu, and beautiful looks.

Well, hope this was helpful.

If your view in life is that you are going to pay $x00 to get a device then it must be near ideal - ruggedly constructed, fault proof, good product support, easy to use software - then do yourself a favor and dont buy yet. All the products have drawbacks and are not mature yet; if you expect value and reliability then wait a while. If you are OK paying $x00 for something that can be used now, but is likely to both get better and cost less in the future then try to determine which device is the lesser of evils for you.

iPod clearly has the most buzz. Great design and looks cool. Most people love the appearance and praise the touch sensitive buttons. It has a hold button to deactivate the buttons to avoid accidents; however, enough reviewers have complained that the hold button is easily broken and then the device cant be used. Some of the more geeky (non-Apple type) reviewers complain that the scrollwheel is annoying after a while and they resent being forced into this Apple-like interface. Everyone complains about the non-replaceable battery, yet this is the price of sturdy construction. iPod can be used as an external disk, and apparently stores files without problem. However, the music and data are apparently not separated; iPod reviewers complain about "white noise" in random feedback mode that comes from appointments / contacts created on the iPod during synchronization. Synchronizing music among computers, if you have more than one, seems to be an issue; research this before buying if you have multiple computers you want to be synchronized. Reviews for sound quality are generally (but not universally) positive. Reviews of Apples support are generally poor; they seem to address issues in warranty, which covers a short time after delivery / pickup of item. After that it seems like youre on your own. iPod has no stop button; when new users mention this iPod veterans call it "unnecessary" and "so 20th century".

Creative Zen feedback suffers from construction quality, poor product support, difficulty of using the scroll wheel and reasonably consistent feedback about problems with the headphone jack. Construction quality is a difficult item. The Zen has a detachable face plate that allows the battery to be replaced. What is added in functionality (battery replacement) detracts in build quality as the face plate is prone to popping off. Drop if just a few inches on a hard surface and the faceplate pops off (but not if its in its case). Many reviewers say the faceplate simply didnt fit well so they returned the Zen. Feedback on Creatives product support is universally poor; this is not limited to the Zen, it applies to all the companys products. The scroll wheel is finicky; it works most of the time but there is a learning curve for pressing it just right; new users say they have 50% - 75% success rate; some find it so frustrating that they just return the device. The Creative software is awkward / difficult to use and just plain doesnt load on some computers. Enough people have reported that their headphone jack doesnt work after a month of using the device to believe that Creative has some inbuilt manufacturing or quality control problem. The Zen doesnt support folders so it is not really a storage device; even with third party software that "creates" folders, documents and programs cant be launched from the Zen, so it is not a hard disk, its a storage device at best. Reviews for sound quality are generally (but not universally) positive. The Zen has no stop button. Veteran Zen users have explained how to stop if thats what you want.

The Rio Karma feedback suffers from sensitivity in the hard disk. It seems like movement, even small movement, causes skipping in playback and even the device freezing. If you plan to carry the device around (it is a mobile device, right?) then this is something you might want to think about. Karma gets consistently good reviews for sound quality and connectivity from its docking device, which has RCA output jacks and Ethernet jacks for connectivity. Usability (button usage, feature selection, menu structure, display size and quality) also has good feedback. Repair seems to be an issue; some say the repair dont exist - you just have to buy a new player. Perhaps because of its smaller user base there is also a lack of accessories. Like the Zen, the Karma does not support folders and is not designed to be a data storage device. It only comes in 20Gb; enough for most people, not for those with large collections ripped at high sampling rates. The Karma does have a stop button.

There arent many reviews for the iRiver iHP. Those that have it like it. The only complaint seems to be that the disk rotation is slow, leading to longer delays in some functions (playback and even a slow display of the menu?). Otherwise feedback seems to be good. No comments on reliability, warranty, repairs, accessories. No-one mentions whether there is a stop button, but the photos dont show one.

None of these are perfect. If you have the appetite choose the one that you think has the least deficiencies or is best suited to you. Accept that there will be better devices (or new generations of these ones) in a year or two that will cost less. If that is for you then pay the money, learn from the experience and youll be a more informed buyer when you buy device #2. If you arent into paying $x00 to learn and experiment, or the cons outweigh the pros, then wait a year or so.

The box:
The iPod includes headphones, a docking cradle, a Firewire->Dock Connector, a carrying case, remote and charger - along with software.

Ergonomics:
The iPod was easier to figure out than I had imagined. It l