old or new? now or wait?

Originally posted by mrdeep
I'm planning to buy an ipod this summer, but not exactly sure when / which I should get.

old vs new (old 10 gig vs new 10/15 gig):
Battery life seems just a bit too short on the new ones. 6 hours whilst playing with it, and 8 if you don't touch it - I'd (realistically) like to see these times go up by about an hour, do "you" think this might happen via firmware update?

now or wait:
Should I get one now, or wait for whatever they are doing to them in June (I didn't really find any difinative information about cables or firmware). I have usb2 on my computer (and firewire), but I've heard usb2 was faster, and was wondering if they'd sell them with the usb cable. I'm pretty much afraid that I'll buy one now, and then they'll release a new version in june with a hardware fix to make the battery life better.

It depends on many things. You can wait until kingdom come and Apple will continue to bring out better, newer, shinier products with updates, fixing bugs et al. I bought a clamshell iBook last year September for God's sake 2nd hand and although it works fine it is miserably OLD compared to the newer ones.

The older iPods have the advantage of fixed bugs and longer battery life but don't have new features such as on the go playlists.

So I would say if you are desperate to get your hands on one and don't mind the still existent bugs of the 3rd gen or shorter battery life (which seem to be the biggest issues) get a new one now.

USB 2 is coming in June but I don't think Apple will alter battery life.

But if you can wait then wait till end of June and see what happens. You can still decide then to get a 3rd or 2nd gen 10 gig.

my 2 euro cents

There is one more issue: price.

$400 (15 gig) is a lot for an mp3 player. $300 is also a lot for a 10 gigger. But that is a lot money, especially for just an mp3 player. It may be a really nice mp3 player, with some extra features, but It is still just an mp3 player.

And Apple is selling refurbed old ones for $199.

Getting something cheaper would be cool, but then when apple comes out with some new feature (improved otg playlists (I realize an old style one wouldn't have them anyways, but they aren't that great right now so I probably wouldn't us it)), I wouldn't have it, and I probably wouldn't be too happy.

I wonder if I could get my parents to pay for it ... (early birthday present?)

There is also the added benefit of a new iPod in that I can get the extened best buy warranty, and if something happens to my Ipod, I'd be able to get a new one (along with any new revisions they make to the hardware). And I have a strong feeling that no matter how careful I am with my iPod, it will end up dying on me at some point in time.

my god people, they are not gonna update them next month, maybe in the next five months, ya, they will update them. THe new ones just came out last month, jees...lol. Firmware will fix most of the problems, but they will not come out with new ones anytime soon. Some you people crack me up...lol