iPod Reviews

Apple's iPod media player is undoubtedly one of the most significant inventions of the last decade and many rave about it in iPod reviews. While it is not the only digital media player on the market, it can be credited with almost single-handedly transforming the way we listen to music on the go.

At its heart the iPod is an MP3 player, or at least that's what it started out as. The most basic model, the iPod shuffle, is a basic music player and little else. At the top end, the iPod touch offers video,WiFi, a built in browser, email, music and much more.

While iPods have had their fair share of bad press over the years, they remain quality gadgets. Issues with poor battery life and the tendency to break after a year seem to have been resolved by Apple, with fewer users reporting problems with reliability.

On the plus side iPods look good, even the lower-end models. In addition, they boast an excellent user interface and great sound and picture quality, and the sound quality is great.

So, lets have a look at what the current range of iPods have to offer:

iPod shuffle - At just $49 a go you can't go too far wrong. This is a neat, no fuss digital music player with 1GB of space. It does what it's supposed to, no more no less.

iPod nano - Formerly known as the iPod mini, the iPod nano has evolved into a cool little gadget. For as little as $149, you can now have an iPod that handles high-quality color video on its very watchable two inch screen. It is a much neater option than the bulky iPod classic. The nano comes in 4GB or 8GB versions, so it is a little limited in memory for some peoples' tastes.

iPod classic - This iPod is a product of the natural evolution of the original iPod, it even looks the same. However, it now packs a whopping 160GB of storage, plays movies, is silver instead of white and has an excellent battery life. Starting at $249 this remains a good buy for music fans. However, it is beginning to look at least a little out of date, especially next to the iPod touch.

iPod touch - The big question is, if you are going to pay $249 for an iPod classic, why not spend another $50 and get an iPod touch? Even though the bottom end iPod touch's memory capacity is a little limited at 8GB, this is still a mouthwatering piece of gadgetry. For another $100 you can have 16GB memory, while the 32GB model costs $499. The iPod only loses out to the iPhone in the most-sought-after-gadget league table. It has the same touch screen user interface, it has WiFi, the Safari browser for internet, YouTube, Maps and all kinds of cool stuff. This is by far the most desireable digital media player around.

Of the four choices available, we recommend the iPod nano or the iPod touch. Both are new and both make pretty good use of the available technology. They are also likely to stay current for longer than the shuffle or the classic.

Criticisms

We like all the iPods, and we love the nano and the touch. However, they are not perfect. Our chief criticism is Apple's ongoing bid to tie iPod users into managing their iPods' content with iTunes only. There are ways around this with third party software but it is turning into a tedious ongoing battle. iPod users should be allowed access and use the storage space on their media players as they please.

As mentioned earlier, iPods have had problems with reliability, especially the hard disk models. However, these are being phased out by the more reliable flash memory models. In addition, Apple has always been quick to iron out any kinks in its products.

The Apple iPod certainly isn't the only digital media player out there, and it is certainly not the cheapest. However, it does remain one of the best on the market and the iPod touch takes the technology to a whole new level.