Better than the rest, but I still want more.
I've never been a fan of Apple or the iPod franchise due to the lack of user input on most of what goes on with the device/software they provide. That being said, this iPod gets the job done on a standard sense, but I must nitpick a bit.
The good:
iPod is a very well supported player thanks to the lack of customization involved. If you have issues with the firmware, chances are it will be fixed automatically if you let it interact with iTunes. Physically, it is the most solid feeling mp3 player I've ever used. It feels much sturdier than the Zune or, what I was using previously, my Toshiba Gigabeat F40. The display is good, though the Zune does have a larger one. The text easy to read and the interface isn't too confusing. The touch wheel [I'm unfamiliar with the specific terminology] is very precise and menus are easy to navigate in most situations.
The bad:
Lack of customization, as said before, is a huge issue for me. The interface is really standard--black text, white background. Lots of empty space. Even if you have album art for your music, it still has tremendous amounts of blank area that it could be using. This isn't that big of a deal, but there is no way to change it. No way to re-color the interface, make the text larger or smaller, or change the size of the album art as displayed--not without hacking it, which should NOT be necessary. iTunes is also the WORST media player I have ever used. I'm using Windows 7, 64bit. 2.8ghz i7 quad core processor. 8gb of RAM. There is NO excuse for this program being as sluggish as it is. It's a sloppy Mac port that, without your input, makes the broad assumption that you know NOTHING about audio or file management. I had to set my music folder to read only just to prevent it from changing all the tags on my music and removing all of the high resolution folder art I had tediously gathered to use in foobar2000--my normal media player. I don't want to rant about all the flaws about iTunes, however, but I won't hesitate to say that I cannot stand it, and that it is terrible for doing just about everything that WMP and Foobar both do perfectly fine.
Back to the topic of the player itself however, I find there are a lot of flaws in the controls. The wheel to scroll menus is touch sensitive, yet the buttons aren't? I find it odd that I'm clicking buttons down to advance menus when there's really no reason why they couldn't have set it up to simply see a "tap" on one side of the wheel as a queue to go on, and on the other to go back. It just seems odd that Toshiba (an off-brand in my opinion) released their FIRST mp3 player a year before the FIFTH by Apple and it had this with no issue. The entire front of the interface was touch sensitive--mind you, it didn't have an accurate wheel, but it did everything silently, and I prefer that. Frankly, I would still be using THAT if it weren't for the space difference [40gb vs. 80gb.] I also dislike that you power it off by holding the "play" button. Why not the middle one? It seems out of place.
After my tedious complaints, the iPod is still a good player, but if the user had more control over how it functions and how it looks, it would be a GREAT one. However, Apple seems to have been very concerned about giving us that control and thusly made it so restrictive that I almost feel obligated to hack it and replace the interface entirely. Here's to hoping that we see a more stable Zune in the near future.Read full review
