Cheesy Quintessence

My free iPod arrived today, two days sooner than FedEx projected. I went to Round Rock to pick it up today. Like everybody else who gets a free iPod, I took several pictures of it as I slowly opened it. The clear plastic wrapping the iPod to protect it reading, “Don’t steal music,” was amusing. What surprised me about the packaging was that there was thin plastic film stuck to the click wheel to protect it, but no protection dedicated to the screen… I really care less about scratches on the click wheel than scratches on the screen! In fact, the screen is so scratchable that it already has a few light scratches from being set down on a very soft cloth that came with a moderately expensive pair of sunglasses. I cut one of my PDA ScreenGuardz to cover the iPod screen with.

I’ve gotten it set up and copied all my music to it. I must say, I’m a bit disappointed at its flexibility of playback. The “On-the-Go” playlist functionality isn’t very flexible. Play modes include an amazing selection of shuffle and repeat, which are even buried very deep in the menu. But what irritates me is the absence of a custom EQ. They have many presets, but none of them do what I want, and the one that comes closest causes much distortion.

The largest of my gripes could be fixed with a firmware update. I’m hoping other people will want some of these features, especially the custom EQ, so that Apple might be convinced to add them.

Overall, I really don’t see why everybody loves the iPod so much. Not that it’s a bad player, but the only thing it has over other players on the market is its small size. And even then, its hardware isn’t perfect, being excessively easy to scratch. I was right all along: massively overpriced at $300. But mine was free, so I’ll take it!