Hey, potential iPOD buyer looking for advice..

1) The battery life is not terrible, but if you're looking for a music player for transcontinental flights the ipod is not for you. Also, you can always get the belkin battery pack.
In my experiences, the ipod's battery is exceptional.

2) The iPod is compatible with all versions of Windows, you just have to work around some things. You wouldn't be able to use iTunes on ME, but you can use XPlay and Ephpod, two very good programs.
XPlay Homepage (http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplay/)
Ephopd Homepage (http://www.ephpod.com/)
The only catch to using iPod with windows ME or 98 is that in order to upgrade you'd need to borrow a friend's computer with Windows XP or 2000.

3) I do not know exactly how long it would take to transfer songs with USB 1.1, but however long it is, it's too long. Most USB 2 and Firewire cards are in the $40 price range. Some are more expensive, some less, but the $30 ones work perfectly. Check oput your local Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA for these.

4) The blue blacklight is slighly random. The newer iPods are more likely to have a blue blacklight, and 40 GB ipods are more likely to have a blue blacklight than a 10 GB iPods.

5) By VBR files you mean MP3s encoded in VBR? Then yes, yes they do.

I have the 3rd gen 30GB.

1. usually 4-6 hours of use per charge
2. yes mine works with my windowsME. I use musicmatch 7.5 with the ipod plug-in and ipod manager. It works fine. But you may have a problem, cuz I'm betting the brand new ipods being sold today come with Itunes and Itunes does not work on windowsME, and ipod manager software was discontinued.
3. you must get either usb2.0 or firewire. I got an adaptec firewire card for $40. It was extremely easy to install.
4. no idea. Mine does not have blue light.
5. yes.

wait does the ipod work with usb1.1 because thats what i have and i dont want get usb2.o because i dont have the money. and if it does how long will it take to transfer 5gigs of music?

5 gigs of music on usb 1.1 would take approximately 3 hours. USB 1.1 transfers at 500 kbps (kilobytes per second)

1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes
1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes

5gb X 1024KB = 5120MB

5120MB X 1024KB = 25,600KB

It would take 170 minutes or 2.83 hours
5120MB X 1024KB = 25,600KB

This would be the off the top of my head guess approximately anyways because i had a rio mp3 player that held 32MB and used a parallel/USB port and it sucked hardcore. You dont want anything that slow for mass transfers trust me. 1 song will take about 4 seconds but it gets real real slow

BTW, apple kept in mind that users would want to mass transfer to the ipod, therefore usb 1.1 would simply not do, which is why it is not supported.

Thanks for the replies people :)

Cruzn, where did you order the Firewire card from? $19 is a steal.

i think not. It would take way longer than that

maybe. bottom line is its a long time. You may think it won't be so bad until you want to load a few dozen albums right before you take off to school or work and your stuck waiting for that stuff. 5 gigs on firewire would take about what 30 mins?

Originally posted by Televator
Cruzn, where did you order the Firewire card from? $19 is a steal.
I hear newegg saves ( http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=1&submit=Go&description=SD%2DFW6306%2D3I) computer gurus a bundle of money.

Windows ME isn't officially supported. You're lucky it can be used on Windows 9x at all...