Sucks to be a Late Adopter Sometimes
December 25, 2006 by John in Gadgets
I’ve always wanted an iPod. The early models seemed to have problems and they were pretty expensive. A few years ago I bought a Rio Chiba 256 and added a 256MB media card giving the player a half-gig total capacity. It’s a nice MP3 player, fits well in the pocket of my leather jacket, and is relatively easy to control in my pocket while riding with its joystick. I also like that it runs for 17 hours on a single AAA battery (considerably less on the rechargeables I purchased later). The software is decent and the Chiba only cost $138, significantly less than an iPod, though this was before the Nano and Shuffle came out. On longer road trips I chaffed a bit at its limited capacity and purchased a second memory card, this time a half-gig card, giving me a total capacity of 1GB with a memory card swap.
But there’s a reason Apple dominates the portable MP3 player market. The iPod simply rocks. It is unbelievably cool and functional. Sure there’s the revolutionary (?) scrolly-clicky-disc thingey, but it is replete with other thoughtful features, for example, playback is paused if the headphones are inadvertently disconnected. My only concern is the lifespan of the battery and its lack of ease of replacement. Hopefully it will last for at least a few years. That said I’m glad to not have to be constantly fiddling with changing batteries as I do with heavy use on my Rio.
So, note to self: be an early adopter on Apple products (but continue being a late adopter on Microsoft products).