Buying the ipod online, in the US

neXus9

Is there any websites in the US where you can buy an IPOD that delivers over here?

I remeber when I got a Radeon 9800 pro and it was like, EUR150 cheaper over in the US.


Also the IPODS are EUR100 cheaper over in the US.

It's annoying the hell out of me!!

Thanks.

damnyanks

Not sure, but if I were you I'd sort your signature out pronoto lol.... tis a tad big

neXus9

oh yeah...

BigCon

off topic - I was keen on getting an ipod, but I just found out yesterday that the battery runs out after 18 months or so, costs $100 to replace? I'm not sure how reliable this info is, but I think I read it on Cnet...

Sundy

ebay is the place to get it. My mate has just bought a 60Gb one from the us for €400 wit all the extras, needless to say he is well pleased.

BadCharlie

It was on the radio also that the batter will die after so much time. But that mean all the other mp3 players are the same ?? Like I-River Or the jukebox?

rabbitinlights

My mate has just bought a 60Gb one from the us for €400

No such thing, 40GB is the biggest ipod available.

Although creative do a 60GB ZEN

neXus9

Have you checked out Gemini 220 from archos

It looks pretty good. You can use it as a photo viewer aswell as an mp3 player. It's not as suitably sized as the mini ipod but it'll still looks cool and stores 20gb for $350.

.

It would be nice to get a mini ipod but it's a bit pricey at $250 for 4gb(and that's in the US!!) but I guess it'll go down after the hype dies down

neXus9

I was reading the shipping info on amazon.com and they say they can't deliver any electronics to an international address.

amazon.com--10GB ipod=$239(EUR189.53)
amazon.co.uk--10GB ipod=£239(EUR345)

WHAT THE F*CK???

su_dios

the price difference is because of the customs tax to encourage trade within the eu therefore buying from the US is pointless. It's such a scam

comet

There are lots of sites in the U.S. that will ship here but you are running the risk of being caught by customs who will slap on some evil duty making the whole point of buying from the states in the first place redundant.

DaithiSurfer

The problem i have with the ipod is that its been revealed there is an ongoing cost to it.
You pay for the ipod up front and then you pay about €100 every 18 months after that because the battery fails after 18 months and you have to send it back. and pay €100 to get the battery replaced.
You might as well ****ing rent an ipod instead

bk

Originally posted by BadCharlie
It was on the radio also that the batter will die after so much time. But that mean all the other mp3 players are the same ?? Like I-River Or the jukebox?

Well all batteries eventually die. However the iRiver uses a better Lithium Polymer Battery, while the iPod uses a Lithium Ion battery.

The average liftime for the iPod battery is about 18 months, the iRiver battery is guaranteed for 3000 re/discharg cycles, from the iRiver website:

An internal Li-ion Polymer battery is used for iHP series. The life expectancy of rechargeable batteries are usually calculated by how many times it can be re/discharged while performing reasonably well. The manufacturer of the iHP series battery guarantees that it can be re/discharged over 3,000 times. It is also guaranteed to perform minimum of 80% of its initial performance before 300 times of re/discharging.

100% battery performance equals 16 hours.
80% battery performance about 12 hours.

You can actually get 19 hours per charge with MP3's encoded at 128kbps, 16 hours is for MP3's encoded at Lame VBR (recommended for high sound quality).

So if you where to listen to it for about 4 hours a day and recharge it every 3 - 4 days, you would get about 3 - 4 years use at 16 hours per charge, after that it would drop to about 12 hours per charge (still very aceptable, iPod only comes with 8 hours per charge max and drops to about 5 - 6 hours after about one year).

neXus9

iriver is a bit expensive for what you get though. I was recently listening to mp3s and can barely hear a difference between 128k mp3 and 256kmp3.

Although I don't like the idea of getting an mp3 player and packing it with 128k mp3s. Just the idea that i'm not getting the quality of a cd. If I want to get a player, I want ti to have the best sound. I would love to get a mini ipod but it's only got 4GB of info on it.

Is AAC much better than mp3? What would be the recommended bitrate for it? Does it matter?

bk

Originally posted by neXus9

Is AAC much better than mp3? What would be the recommended bitrate for it? Does it matter?

You could go around and around for hours talking about the encodings.
AAC is neither better or worse then MP3, in someplaces it is better in others it is worse.

Generally speaking at lower encodings you can get better sound with AAC then with MP3. However this really shouldn't matter, with a 20GB of space you shouldn't be worring about lower encoding size, you should be worrying about how to get the best sound quality. You can get the best sound quality by using Lame to create VBR MP3's.

Lame with very specific settings has been tested by audiophiles around the world for a number of years to ensure it produces the best sound quality possible.

BTW If you know anyone in the US, you can pick up a 20GB iRiver for aboutt e300 or here in Ireland you can get the iRiver iHP-120 from amazon.co.uk for about e360, compared to an iPod 20GB for e420. So how is "iriver is a bit expensive for what you get though" it is e60 cheaper then the equivalent iPod while being far better equiped and speced?

Also dump the earphones that come with the iPod/iRiver and get a real pair of earphones like the Sennheiser MX500, Koss Portapro or Grado SR60 and you will hear the difference between encodings on the iRiver.

neXus9

I thought it has only 256mb space? Maybe I was looking at something different?

neXus9

oh, there's a 20GB one. OK

Is the interface on the iriver any good?

bk

Originally posted by neXus9
oh, there's a 20GB one. OK

iRiver make lots of products include Flash players (128MB - 1 GB), CD MP3 players and HD players in 10, 20 and 40 GB size.

Is the interface on the iriver any good?

Very good, it is a small bit more complicated then the iPod, but not much more. I had the interface down in 10 minutes and could even use the basic features on the remote without looking at it (while in pocket).

Sundy

Originally posted by rabbitinlights
No such thing, 40GB is the biggest ipod available.

Although creative do a 60GB ZEN

now that you say it, its takin along time for it to arrive or else he is gettin fleeced!