Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Got an iPod
Yes, I finally caved and got myself an iPod. I got it in the mail late last week and have been using it both for the long commute and when I need to concentrate on work at the office.

The one thing that continually held me back from getting one until now is the price -- I find it very hard to pay $350+ for a basic 20GB iPod for the equivalent amount of hard drive space I've got any of the older computers in the house. Then there's the well-known premium you pay because it comes from Apple. And Apple ensures that its retailers only make discounts on their new wares when they say so, so anything like real sale prices that dip into the more reasonable range of things cannot be expected anytime soon.

But I found a loophole in all of this when I found that factorydirect.ca -- one of my favoured computer retailers on College Street -- was selling refurbished 2nd generation iPods (the first PC version) for just over $200 and change. That is my personal "sweet spot" for such a device, and I figure for that price I can buy a used iPod and if I like it I can eventually upgrade to a later model. Most of the MP3 players I've had (and I had some early review copies of some of the first Rio models from Creative Labs back when 16MB of storage was a major selling point) have lasted me a year or less of steady use, so if this one lasts as long, I'll be happy.

In the end, I consider it my reward to myself for having successfully taught three courses this past semester. Ugh.

So far the experience has been good. The package I got from factorydirect.ca was as bare-bones as could be: the iPod itself, a Firewire cable and a software licensing agreement, which was odd considering that there was no actual software included anywhere in the box. No distinctive white earbuds either, which was not a problem since I like the Aiwa noise-canceling headphones I use on the bus ride to work. The lack of software ended up not being a problem as I downloading ITunes for Windows from the Apple site, and was soon transferring my CD collection in MP3 format to the Library folder of the software and then selecting from it what I wanted on the iPod. I've got about 50GB of my own music neatly ripped at 320kBits/s, but at this point I am still far from filling it up with favourite tunes and the like.

I am beginning to see why people have been raving about these devices. My 2nd generation model doesn't have the click wheel, so there are separate buttons for the menu, back, forward and play/pause buttons arranged strategically around the existing wheel, but this seems a minor, minor loss. The wheel itself is incredibly sensitive, and the interface is as clean as could be and incredibly easy to use and intuitive -- some people put a lot of thought towards the ergonomics and UI for the device and it shows. Now that I have one, it is clearer why Apple has effectively taken over this market, excepting the fashion angle.

We'll see how long this one lasts me, but at this point I'm pretty much sold on an upgrade to this when it inevitably dies.