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help picking an ipod

L

laf5203

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 2, 2009
11
0
Pennsylvania
I am planning on doing the student deal where you get a free ipod with a macbook. I have never had an ipod before. You can get an ipod you want and they will give you up to $229 back in a rebate. I was thinking the ipod touch looks pretty awesome but for all that it can do I worry about 8gig being enough space. I would probably only have at most a couple hundred songs on it(i only have 78 on itunes right now), and I am sure i will play games and use some of the apps. I probably won't watch video on it at all. So would that be enough memory for me or should I just get the 16gig nano or should i spend an extra $20 and get the 120gig regular, or an extra $70 for the 16 gig?
 
where do you see that you can get any ipod? on the site, it seems to repeatedly say only ipod touch.

you can get any ipod touch, but you only get 229 back...so the extra is on your back.
 
you can get any ipod you want, but they are pushing the iPod Touch. If you get a nano or classic you will get less back for the rebate, if you get a higher capacity Touch you will still get the $229 only.
 
laf5203 said:
I am planning on doing the student deal where you get a free ipod with a macbook. I have never had an ipod before. You can get an ipod you want and they will give you up to $229 back in a rebate. I was thinking the ipod touch looks pretty awesome but for all that it can do I worry about 8gig being enough space. I would probably only have at most a couple hundred songs on it(i only have 78 on itunes right now), and I am sure i will play games and use some of the apps. I probably won't watch video on it at all. So would that be enough memory for me or should I just get the 16gig nano or should i spend an extra $20 and get the 120gig regular, or an extra $70 for the 16 gig?
Click to expand...

trust me, 8Gb is enough space for music, games, and all other kinds of apps. I have a size able music library on my new macbook (21.62GB) needless to say I don't listen to all of those songs at once. So I made a special playlist in iTunes of just the songs that I need to have at the moment and set my iPod touch to update only from that playlist. I have all of my music on my iPod classic just for ***** and giggles, but that isn't necessary. The iPod touch is for so much more then music too. I'm assuming that youre a student (much like myself) and are gonna have constant wi-fi access on campus. With the touch, you can check your emails, update facebook, twitter, and do what ever else you would like to do.
Apple is pushing the iPod touch for two reasons...1.) because they are going to update the touch in the very near future. 2.) because if people realize that they can get that particular iPod for free, it could sell more computers.
 
joehahn said:
trust me, 8Gb is enough space for music, games, and all other kinds of apps. I have a size able music library on my new macbook (21.62GB) needless to say I don't listen to all of those songs at once. So I made a special playlist in iTunes of just the songs that I need to have at the moment and set my iPod touch to update only from that playlist. I have all of my music on my iPod classic just for ***** and giggles, but that isn't necessary. The iPod touch is for so much more then music too. I'm assuming that youre a student (much like myself) and are gonna have constant wi-fi access on campus. With the touch, you can check your emails, update facebook, twitter, and do what ever else you would like to do.
Apple is pushing the iPod touch for two reasons...1.) because they are going to update the touch in the very near future. 2.) because if people realize that they can get that particular iPod for free, it could sell more computers.
Click to expand...

While I'd say that, in general, I've found 16gb to be more acceptable than 8, I do agree with Joe, especially once you factor in SimplifyMedia, an app available in the AppStore. It will allow you to stream any of your non-itunes-purchased files over wifi or 3g. not too shabby; I use it to listen to podcasts or audiobooks that i might not have on my iphone, but would like to listen to at some point. There can be lags over 3g occasionally, but I've found it to work well.

You definitely need to work with smart playlists to get the best use out of a smaller hard drive, but it can be done, and done well.
 
OnlyShawn said:
You definitely need to work with smart playlists to get the best use out of a smaller hard drive, but it can be done, and done well.
Click to expand...

Smart Playlists are indeed the key. Here's my setup as an example. (I have a 4 Gb second-gen Nano.)
  • I have a standard playlist I call nanoEssentials. This contains songs I consider perennial favorites and some new songs, and takes about 2 Gbs of space.
  • I then constructed a Smart Playlist, nanoRandom, that filters out all songs in the nanoEssentials list as well a couple of genres I'm not really a fan of, removes all files larger than 30 Mb (which tends to exclude podcasts and really long megamixes), then sorts by "random", limiting it to the remainder of memory, about 1.5 Gb. This keeps my nano's content selection from going stale; I refresh/re-randomize it whenever I recharge.
  • Both the above are combined into another Smart Playlist, nanoAll, which I use only indirectly, for the next step.
  • In the Grouping field in Get Info, I have marked songs that are "kid-safe" (i.e. free of profanity and overt adult themes such as sex or violence). I created another Smart Playlist that examines nanoAll and chooses those that have the "KidSafe" designation, and call it nanoKidSafe.
With this setup, I'm afforded two choices for shuffled playing. When listening through headphones, I simply "Shuffle Songs" from the main menu, which has everything. I shuffle the "nanoKidSafe" playlist when I'm using my Logitech iPod speaker set outside or when visiting family and friends, in order to avoid having to run over in a frantic rush to the Logitech to skip some of the more.. ahem... hardcore songs in my library. When I decide that I want to add or delete songs from the nanoEssentials list, it'll affect the nanoRandom rotation correspondingly.

Set It and Forget It, really.
 
trust me, 8Gb is enough space for music, games, and all other kinds of apps. I have a size able music library on my new macbook (21.62GB) needless to say I don't listen to all of those songs at once. So I made a special playlist in iTunes of just the songs that I need to have at the moment and set my iPod touch to update only from that playlist. I have all of my music on my iPod classic just for ***** and giggles, but that isn't necessary. The iPod touch is for so much more then music too. I'm assuming that youre a student (much like myself) and are gonna have constant wi-fi access on campus. With the touch, you can check your emails, update facebook, twitter, and do what ever else you would like to do.
Apple is pushing the iPod touch for two reasons...1.) because they are going to update the touch in the very near future. 2.) because if people realize that they can get that particular iPod for free, it could sell more computers.
Click to expand...

Well, if you're insane like me, you encode all your music in Apple Lossless - and 8/16GB Touches really don't cut it if you have a large library of music. Which is why I'm glad Apple still makes the Classic.
 
CaptainChunk said:
Well, if you're insane like me, you encode all your music in Apple Lossless - and 8/16GB Touches really don't cut it if you have a large library of music. Which is why I'm glad Apple still makes the Classic.
Click to expand...

capn's insanity is well-named. :) I'm willing to bet he hasn't done a blind ABX test of his lossless and a higher quality lame-encoded mp3 on his listening medium of choice....but that's another discussion for another day.
 
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