I've decided to treat myself to an Ipod.

I've done a search on here and managed to find the answers to several of my questions re what will and won't go onto them.

But one question that I couldn't find an answer to is about talking books. Can I download them onto an Ipod, in the same way that I can download music and videos?

Also, I've got a Packard Bell external hard drive - can I back up everything on my Ipod directly onto that? Although I'll still have all the CDs, DVDs I put onto the Ipod, I can't see me wanting to pither about dowloading them all again individually if something goes wrong.

The other thing is, the more storage you have on an MP3 player, the more expensive it is. So what's going on with the Ipod touch? A 32gb Touch is £329, but a 160gb classic is only £228.

Why the difference in price? Does the Touch have massive advantages over the classic? Or is it just because it's the latest thing?

Thank you in anticipation of nice, simple, non-techie answers to my questions :hihi:

PS And another one - do you need to get a protective case for them? They seem a tad pricey for a bit of acrylic.

HI. Yep took me a while to sort out audio books too. You need to convert them to MB4 file type,for them to go to the audio book menu on the ipod. if you do not convert to that format. The books end up in you music list.

As your not suppose to be able to downlown from an ipod. You would have to purchase some software like COPYPOD. That allows you to do this by forcing the IPOD to give up its files.

The ipod touch has wifi so you can browse the internet on it. There is also google map software, weather and Stock market info.
Apple are about to release the Software development kit for it and the iPhone so there will shortly be a lot of third party software that will run and take advantage of the wifi connection

iPod touch has, surprisingly, a touchscreen interface. And that screen is bigger than the classic's. And it has wifi for web and email access, etc. Oh, and the storage is flash based... not a mechanical hard drive like the classic. Basically, the touch is an iPhone without the phone or camera.

As for backing up, you should use your external drive to backup the iTunes library on your computer. You can't (easily) get files from off the iPod back to the computer should the computer ever die.


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PS And another one - do you need to get a protective case for them? They seem a tad pricey for a bit of acrylic.

The Touch is incredibly fabulous, the screen is tough as anything so no screen film needed. The case of the Touch may not be so resistant though. I bought myself the Contour iSee case (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Contour-iSee-Clear-Case-for-apple-iPod-touch-8GB-16GB_W0QQitemZ170195218025QQihZ007QQcategoryZ56170 QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p163 8.m122) from a US supplier on ebay (half the UK price at the time, and came in couple of days !) - easy to fit as its two bits that you snap together, Nice cutouts for access to the buttons, and there are a couple of notches halfway along the long edges that are good for making holding the Touch easier for long periods, for example sitting on Tram for half an hour chuckling away at the latest episode of Red Dwarf, Hyperdrive or whatever I've taped off Dave on Freeview :)

Thanks for the info/advice! I don't know what I'd do without SF to answer my questions. I know "Google is my friend", but it would take ages to search out all the answers I need. And I probably wouldn't understand most of 'em anyway, 'cos lots of them seem to be in technobabble :hihi:

As one who can't even be bothered to tune her mobile phone into t'interweb, I think I'll definitely be plumping for the classic Ipod.

Only an idiot would buy an Ipod, there is much better to be had. Consider the Archos 605. It pees all over the Ipod.

With the ipod touch you are paying alot more for the look of it, just like most things. But I have to say I have an 80g classic ipod and I now use my 16g ipod touch and I absolutely love it! Not really cos of the internet cos i dont really use that but I just like the look of it and dont mind missing the extra storage.. 16g is enough for me.

It's the screen size of the touch which makes it for me.