
There is no doubt that this is a beautiful piece of workmanship. I have an Apple-obsessed friend that I have teased for years about his Apple fixation. So when I bought this secondhand beauty I emailed him my impression:
"Build quality and packaging are exceptional, truly first rate. Excellent tactility. Apple really has that part sorted out; I'm impressed.
Screen and CPU somewhat less magnificent."
Part of my teasing of this pleasant fellow was due to my experience with iTunes; I had given in to his constant evangelism about my trying it out. iTunes represented, for me, all that is wrong with software. Unjustifiably massive bloat, braindead 70MB updates, resource hogging, and treating the user like he has been lobotomized (or hypnotized by Apple). So no iTunes for me, no matter what. The solution?
"The OS is so-so and iTunes is the Root Of All Evil, so I installed
rockbox on it and am enjoying it immensely. I load
mp3/ogg/flac/whatever by copying across the USB connection.
(rockbox dot org)"
Rockbox lets me use that beautiful Apple hardware with an interface that puts /me/ in control. And I can play ogg, flac, Still, I find myself using the iPod less than a Sansa e260 that had an MSRP 3-4x less than the iPod. The Sansa has a color screen, better video playback (yes, you can play video on your mini with rockbox. It also has something that might seem trivial: a place to attach a lanyard.
Since I use the Sansa for mobile listening I might get one of those audio docks to use the iPod with my stereo system.Get more detail about
Apple iPod 4 GB mini M9434LL/A (Green) OLD MODEL.