Well, here's where I am. Prior to Tuesday's announcements, I had planned on getting a 40 GB iPod, on the basis that it would be large enough to hold all my music (my iTunes library currently stands at 24.5 GB, so a 40 would hold it all and have plenty of room to grow, but no other model that was recently shipping before this week would); I'd have the convenience of autosync, and the freedom to listen to anything in my library at any time on a whim, regardless of whether I'd specifically planned to have it with me or not (that is, I wouldn't have had to have it among the subset of my overall library I'd chosen to have on the iPod that day). As a bonus of the 4G models, I'd also have a ~12-hour battery life instead of ~8. However, if I'd gotten any model other than the 40, my second choice would actually be a mini instead of the next most capacious thing. My thinking would be that as long as I was getting an iPod that wouldn't carry
everything anyway, it didn't particularly matter whether it'd take 4 GB or 10 or 15 or 20, since any of those sizes would still require me to make some decision about what music to take with me at a given time, and any specific selection of tracks I'd make containing music I'd particularly want to hear probably wouldn't be that large anyway. Therefore, 4 GB would still be about as sufficient for me given how I'd use any iPod with a capacity below my current total library volume, and it'd have the added attractions of lower size and weight
and being available in my favorite color, all for less money. The lower battery life of the mini would be a drawback, but probably not one really likely to affect me often, and not enough to offset the combined considerations of size / weight, color, and price.
However... now that there are new things in the mix, well...
I'm considering the iPod Photo because, hey, it does show photos... and even though that's certainly not essential for me, it
is undeniably nifty (and after all, it's not like I can't continue to use it like any other iPod even if I don't want to look at the pretty pictures on the screen). Also, I can get it in 60 GB, which is overkill for me right now, but I do plan on adding considerably to my music library soon (not to mention the fact I can certainly enjoy using the extra space for non-music-related stuff, like toting large files from one computer to another). The icing here would be the 15-hour-battery life; realistically, this is almost certainly more than I'd need, but it'd be enough of a ceiling to ensure I'd probably never be dry, and it'd be nice to have. This, of course, would apply to the 40 GB iPod Photo as well, as would the color / photo stuff. The biggest strike against the 60 GB would be that it's expensive; it's hard to justify spending ~$600 for a freaking MP3 player, even one so nice (the ~$500 for the 40 GB iPod Photo is a little easier to swallow; I'd actually pretty much assumed I would spend that much to get a 40 GB anyway, back before the 4G models came out, and I was perfectly willing to do so once funds permitted. Of course, I can now get 40 GB for $399 instead of $499, which wasn't true several months ago).
The U2 iPod is kind of a wild card. As per my discussion of the 40 GB vs. the mini above, it's not capacious enough to hold everything, while still being larger and more expensive than I'd need to go with if I were willing to settle for anything less than toting my whole library (since if I decide I don't need to do that, I can get the mini).
However... the U2, while not in my one favorite single color (that'd be green),
is in a color combo I like a lot, so hey, I do like the looks a lot. The other thing is that I'm in the unusual position of liking U2 a lot, to the point of having already decided I want to get all of their music eventually, without actually having a lot of their music yet. At the moment I have just
The Best Of 1980 - 1990,
All That You Can't Leave Behind, and a handful of individual tracks from singles and EPs from the iTMS; my whole U2 library is just 38 songs running under 2 hours and 50 minutes. I'm therefore an ideal candidate for something like a colossal U2 anthology like the one the U2 iPod complements, since nearly everything in it is something I want but don't yet have (whereas most U2 fans would have most of it already, and most non-fans wouldn't want more than just a handful of songs from it at most). Of course, the U2 iPod costs $50 more than the regular 20, but it does have that $50 coupon toward the set, so if one is going to buy the set anyway, the U2 iPod essentially costs the same as the regular 20 - the only difference is that it comes in black and red with the band's sigs on the back, and with a free poster. Pretty cool, actually, if you dig the band to the point of wanting to make them the principal artist(s) represented on/by your iPod - but then, I'm not sure I want to do that. I do really really really enjoy U2, but they're still not quite my
favorite musical talent(s), and it seems to me that if I were to get an iPod centered around one particular artist or composer, it should be my absolute favorite, rather than just one of my favorites who wasn't in the top slot. Additionally, while I do want all the music in that anthology, I think I'd rather spend the money to get most of it on CD instead, and just download the handful of additional songs from the iTMS that I couldn't get on CD without also getting duplicates of stuff from other albums. I should also perhaps note that I have some CD-Rs someone gave me a few years ago of MP3s of pretty much the entire U2 library up to that point (I didn't ask for them; he just forced them on me, I swear!), so I do already possess compressed digital files of the music anyway; they're just not nicely tagged, and they're not legit. I do in fact want to get this music legitimately, but as long as I'd be spending money to get music I already have anyway, I'm all that much more inclined to get the CDs, so I'd have the art and liner notes and DRM-free true CD quality. Still, though, this
does seem an attractive option (and I'm not sure I'd be able to resist if it were instead centered around, say, any of my favorite film composers, David Bowie, or the Beatles, even though I already have a lot more stuff from them than I do U2).
On top of all this, there's the fact that while I'd long considered the 40 GB to be my top choice if funds permitted it and the green mini to be my next choice if I had enough money for it but not the 40, I'm now reconsidering whether I do in fact want to spend the additional money to get the 40 (even though the prices of the 40 and the mini are now $100 closer to each other than they were earlier this year). I've recently come into some money, and I do indeed intend to use a small portion of it for fun nonessentials, but naturally there's a lot more in the way of fun nonessentials I'd love to have than just iPods, and I'm wondering whether I might derive more enjoyment from spending a little less on the iPod and a little more on something else (music to put on the iPod, DVDs, LEGO - there's no shortage of stuff that costs money that I want). This reevaluation has had the practical effect of making the iPod mini, previously my clear second-tier choice, closer to my first choice; it hasn't quite displaced the 40 GB as my top choice, but the previously distinct demarcation between the two as "first choice" and "second choice" has become rather blurry.
In short: I don't know what the hell I want, other than that I do in fact want some kind of iPod. I do know I want an iPod, though, and I'm going to get one.
But hey... why the hell am I telling / asking you guys this?
You're not going to make the decision...
On an unrelated note, I'd just like to say this is my first post I've made in months from my own computer. I've got internet access again!! Woohoo!!!
Fri Oct 29, 2004 12:51 am :: New iPod announcements... head spinning... Top
