The iPod Gap
I'm sure lots of people have noticed this already, but I just picked up on it yesterday. My girlfriend pointed out to me that there is a big capacity gap in the current iPod lineup since there is no longer a 30 GB version like the previous generation.
The current crop of iPods (including Shuffle, Nano, Classic, and Touch) come in 1, 4, 8, 16, 80, and 160 GB capacities. It's a long way between 16 and 80 GB. Right now I have about 10 GB of music on my computer, so if I where to dump it all into an iPod (which I would because that way I don't have to think about what I want to listen to over the next while it also makes syching a no-brainer), the 16 GB capacity would probably be a bit restrictive at the rate my music collection typically grows. In any case, that model is a Touch, which is first generation and less reliable. But the next one up is 80 GB, which is actually bigger than my computer's hard drive (it has 60 GB, which was pretty typical capacity when I bought it). Since the iPod at some point would be synced with my computer, I'd not only have way more iPod capacity than music, but more iPod space than space on my computer, period, especially when you consider that a PC needs about 50% of the hard drive free to work properly. The only way to use the remaining iPod capacity would be to use the iPod in part as a back-up drive.
Now for the counter-arguement. In terms of cost per GB, the hard-drive based classic is far and away the best deal compared with its flashed-based cousins. The 80 GB version works out to be $3.50 / GB (at current Canadian prices), the 160 GB version $ 2.50 / GB, so even if I only use, say 25 GB (about the max I could squeeze onto my current PC), I've simply bought $195.50 of extra space on the 80 GB version. And I don't need to think about outgrowing my iPod, and when I replace my current computer, there will be doubtlessly a bigger hard drive in the new one. In case you want to know, the flash based iPods average out to $44.87 / GB, ranging from $28.85 to $84.99 per GB.
The current crop of iPods (including Shuffle, Nano, Classic, and Touch) come in 1, 4, 8, 16, 80, and 160 GB capacities. It's a long way between 16 and 80 GB. Right now I have about 10 GB of music on my computer, so if I where to dump it all into an iPod (which I would because that way I don't have to think about what I want to listen to over the next while it also makes syching a no-brainer), the 16 GB capacity would probably be a bit restrictive at the rate my music collection typically grows. In any case, that model is a Touch, which is first generation and less reliable. But the next one up is 80 GB, which is actually bigger than my computer's hard drive (it has 60 GB, which was pretty typical capacity when I bought it). Since the iPod at some point would be synced with my computer, I'd not only have way more iPod capacity than music, but more iPod space than space on my computer, period, especially when you consider that a PC needs about 50% of the hard drive free to work properly. The only way to use the remaining iPod capacity would be to use the iPod in part as a back-up drive.
Now for the counter-arguement. In terms of cost per GB, the hard-drive based classic is far and away the best deal compared with its flashed-based cousins. The 80 GB version works out to be $3.50 / GB (at current Canadian prices), the 160 GB version $ 2.50 / GB, so even if I only use, say 25 GB (about the max I could squeeze onto my current PC), I've simply bought $195.50 of extra space on the 80 GB version. And I don't need to think about outgrowing my iPod, and when I replace my current computer, there will be doubtlessly a bigger hard drive in the new one. In case you want to know, the flash based iPods average out to $44.87 / GB, ranging from $28.85 to $84.99 per GB.
posted by Colin at
9:35 a.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home