11 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
A good player with a terrible price
Date of Review: Aug 23, 2008
The Bottom Line: There are better, less expensive mp3 players out there.
A couple days ago i decided to buy my first 5th gen 30gb Ipod for my ipod car adapter, so i bought a used one off eBay for $99. It arrived in fairly good condition with only a couple scratches and it ran just fine. I'm going to go through the main qualities of a good mp3 with the ipod to see how it compares.
User Interface: I found the user interface to be pretty good, not only was it easy to use, but easy to navigate through using the touch wheel. However there were times where i felt annoyed at having to constantly run my finger around the wheel for several seconds at a time to find one song. 8/10
Battery: I tested the battery and found it to last 10 hours with music and 1.2 hours with video. The battery seemed to drain pretty fast compared to other mp3 players I have used in the past (keep i mind that this was used so it's expected that the battery life would be a little worse than what it should be). 7/10
Durability/fix-ibility : This mp3 definetly feels solid in your hands, it doesn't feel flimsy at all. While it does have a metal plate to protect it's back, i found the front side scratched fairly easily. i would recommend a silicon case for it because if you dropped it on something hard from hand held height (say 3ft onto cement) it would probably break.
Although the Ipod is a closed (almost sealed) mp3 player with no normal way to open it, it can be easily opened and fixed wit h a small inexpensive tool sold pretty much everywhere, this allows you to replace everything, but at a cost $$$. 7.5/10
Sound quality: Honestly, i know everyone thinks that the Ipod has great sound quality, but i didn't find it to be much better or worse than a couple cheaper models I have, it was only slightly above average for me. 7.8/10
Price/quality ratio: Considering that I spent $99 on this mp3 player, I think it's pretty good; but i would never buy this for $180 + tax. I have to say that although it's a good mp3 player, it's overpriced for what you get.
Overall: I wasn't really impressed with the Ipod, because of all the hype over them i expected more, but ended up with just another mp3 player, the only thing i can honestly say that is really good about it is all the accessories you can buy for it. if you can get one for $99 then it's ok, but theres nothing so special about it that you should go out and buy one right away at full price.