CAN someone please lend me $399?
If I had the money lying around, I’d run out and blow it on the iPod, Apple’s new MP3 player for Mac users.
Apple chief Steve Jobs was late to the game with an Apple music player, but his super-device was worth waiting for.
Launched Saturday, the sexy cigarette-pack sized unit, white acrylic on one side, stainless-steel silver on the flip, is already the hottest toy of the holiday season.
It’s been flying out of stores such as Manhattan’s RCS and TekServ, which both have waiting lists.
“Everyone who sees it, gets it instantly and wants one,” says David Lerner, co-owner of Tekserve.
Why? Because the new lightweight, 6.5 ounce, iPod, holds a whopping 1,000 songs, or 66 hours worth of music.
We got to test the iPod – and quite simply, it rocks. It’s compact, easy, beautiful, fun to use and sounds great.
It will play songs for up to 10 hours, without a recharge. You could run the New York City Marathon on that, twice!
But is it worth $399?
Absolutely – if you’re already a Mac user.
But the price – more than double most MP3 players on the market – may scare some buyers away, says Mark H. Anbinder, contributing editor, TidBITS, an online Mac newsletter.
“At $50 or $100 less, it would be a clear winner,” he says. “As it is, it’s an exceptional portable MP3 player with, by far, the best user interface of any of them, in any price range.”
It’s easier and faster to use than other MP3 players, which suffer from limited memory space, short-lived batteries and long delays in uploading music files.
The biggest distinguishing factor is the 5 GB FireWire hard drive, which doesn’t skip when you’re jogging.
All that memory and it’s much slimmer than the few other Mac-compatible MP3 players with internal hard drives.
“That’s what makes it worth $399,” points out Anbinder. “The very same drive, sold retail by itself, is already $399. Think of it as buying a drive and getting a free MP3 player.”
Another selling point: Using Apple’s iTunes 2 software is a breeze. Basically, it’s plug-in and play.
As soon as the iPod is connected to the Mac, all the songs are downloaded in record time.
An entire CD can be downloaded in 10 seconds, while a thousand songs can be downloaded in 10 minutes.
The unit also has a sleep timer, backlight timer and a groovy smooth wheel on its face for easily navigating the tracks with one hand.
I’m not the only one who’s taken by the shiny new toy.
“With iTunes, you just plug it in,” says Lerner. “I just started ripping all my CDs into the computer, which I never did before.”
The bad news? The iPod is not PC compatible.
Sorry, guys.
