Mom and daughter at Best Buy for an IPOD

[greensinestro]

The other night, my son and I went to Best Buy to buy an IPOD touch. He had saved enough money for months to buy this thing, and I was the one drafted into taking him. When we got there, we made a beeline for the IPOD department when suddenly, a mom and her piggish looking daughter materialized out of nowhere. The daughter was probably about ten years old and not properly dressed, and was eating a box of Goldfish crackers. The mother was asking question after question after question, and it seemed like forever before we would get the help we needed. During this time, the daughter was eating her Goldfish, then placed the carton on top of the display IPODs, and was licking the cheese off her fingers while touching the displays! Mom didn't seem to notice or to care, except the one time she told the daughter to hold on to her crackers.

Anytime I go shopping at any electronics store, like Best Buy or Circuit City, they usually frown on people bringing in food or drinks, yet it seemed all right for this girl to do it. My guess was the sales guy was afraid of losing out on his commission, so he kept his mouth shut. I say this, because my son got an 8 GB IPOD and the sales guy tried to have him get a 16 or 32. Also, he kept trying to get him to buy a case for it, plus some better earbuds.

I should add I not one time touched those displays after I saw this.

[rerant]

This is why I am a strong advocate for babysitters.
I've never been particularly fond of children but it's no secret that some are so well behaved you can take them anywhere, whereas others should never see the light of retail day.
Goldfish cracker girl is the latter.
In fact, mom could probably do us all a favour by shopping online.


Side question:
Is the iPod Touch everything I could have hoped for and more? I'm considering buying one but I'm wondering if the novelty of it would wear off and if I should just go for another Nano or one of the Originals once mine eventually craps out.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My guess was the sales guy was afraid of losing out on his commission, so he kept his mouth shut. I say this, because my son got an 8 GB IPOD and the sales guy tried to have him get a 16 or 32. Also, he kept trying to get him to buy a case for it, plus some better earbuds.

I think I read someplace on this site that Apple sets the prices for their products so there's not much profit in the iPod itself, if any. The profit comes from the accessories like the case and earbuds.

And yes, daughter should have been told that no food or drinks were allowed in the store. Lots of expensive electronics items that can be damaged if food and drink get spilled on them.

[rerant]

I think I read someplace on this site that Apple sets the prices for their products so there's not much profit in the iPod itself, if any. .

I thought that too until I saw an 8G iPod Touch at the Apple store for $319+tax but $279+ tax at Best Buy.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I thought that too until I saw an 8G iPod Touch at the Apple store for $319+tax but $279+ tax at Best Buy.

Another thing I thought I read: The store can set the price lower than what Apple sets, but not higher.

Here is the specific post, I think. However I'm unsure of whether or not Apple still does that.

[KaeZoo]

Anytime I go shopping at any electronics store, like Best Buy or Circuit City, they usually frown on people bringing in food or drinks, yet it seemed all right for this girl to do it. My guess was the sales guy was afraid of losing out on his commission, so he kept his mouth shut.

Best Buy and Circuit City employees aren't paid on commission any more. He probably just didn't want to risk an argument.

[Gurndigarn]

Side question:
Is the iPod Touch everything I could have hoped for and more? I'm considering buying one but I'm wondering if the novelty of it would wear off and if I should just go for another Nano or one of the Originals once mine eventually craps out.

It's an MP3/movie/game player with an innovative input format. Basically an iPhone without the phone part. Is that everything you could have hoped for and more? You're roughly burning an extra hundred bucks over the nano for a bigger screen and

It's light, which is a very nice plus over the originals. Less memory, but (IMO) sufficient for what you want unless you must have your entire music and movie collection with you. It's about a hundred bucks more than a nano. It's got a bigger screen and an innovative input system, both of which are useful if you want to do more with it than just listen to music (movies, games, etc). Whether or not they're worth an extra hundred bucks is the question. If all you do is listen to music, stick with the nano.

In short, if you lust after an iPhone but don't need the phone (or the iContract part), it's not a bad choice. If all you want is something to carry your tunes in, save your money.

[Bliss]

If all you need are tunes, yes a nano or a classic or a Sansa e200 is better for the price, but if you're hoping to do some other stuff, buy programs for it, try to replace a PDA with it (it'll take time for the software market to feel out the apple store and decide wehter to push programs for the touch and iphone or not), and do more advanced stuff like browsing the web, the touch is not a bad device for that.

Edit: Btw to the OP the earbuds that come with pods are generally of good enough quality that if you care well for them you shouldn't really need to pay more for "better" stuff. they're rather good.

At the worst if you want a little boost on the bass range and sound level for cheap you can always get these for them, I have them and enjoy it a lot: Earjams they enhance the bass curve of the sound a lot, keep external noise out, make the sound a little louder, and work with your original buds without being too expensive.

[BlaqueKatt]

If all you need are tunes, yes a nano or a classic or a Sansa e200 is better for the price,

I personally recommend anything by Creative-why you ask?

An 8GB creative zen would've only cost you $129.99 and has the ability to expand memory via SD cards. Compared to $299.99 for the Ipod touch-which is stuck at 8 GB and does not feature a radio, voice recorder, or expandable memory. And the creative is smaller than the ipod(credit card sized)

Battery life-Up to 30 hours of continuous audio or to 5 hours of video playback
Audio Playback Format: MP3, WMA, non-protected AAC, WAV and Audible 2,3 and 4
Photo Format: JPEG and (with transcoding - GIF, TIFF, PNG and BMP)
Video Playback Format: MJPEG, WMV9 and (with transcoding - MPEG1 and 2, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD)
Organizer: Syncs with and views Microsoft Outlook® Contacts, Calendar & Tasks
additional Features:
Album Art
FM radio with 32 presets
Voice recorder
Clock and alarm function
Volume restriction
Customizable main menu
Functions as an external hard drive
8 EQ settings (Acoustic, classical, disco, jazz, new age, pop, rock and vocal)
Memory capacity expandable via SD cards
Most have video out to tv capability
transfer pics from your SD card to a zen-helpful if you run out of space

and awards include the Consumer Electronics Show "Best of CES" awards for four consecutive years for ZEN Portable Media Centre (2004), ZEN MicroPhoto MP3 player (2005) and ZEN Vision:M MP3 player (2006). The ZEN Micro MP3 player also won the Ziff Davis Media "Best of DigitalLife 2004" award.
Apple cannot say that-plus Creative created the very first portable MP3 player.

[Horsetuna]

My thooughts about the Ipod Touch:

It has no buttons you can feel. Therefore, when you're bundled up in the cold with your hands in your pockets, you can't as accurately find the buttons and press play/skip/whatever.

But you can on the ones with the wheels

[Pagan]

I was reading Kim Komando when I was looking at MP3s/iPods before I got mine. Someone was asking about which was better, the Classic or the Nano. The biggest thing to remember and consider is that the Classic, if you drop it, will get damaged more. It has an actual hard drive in it. The Nano, on the other hand, uses flash memory. I still don't recommend dropping it (I haven't dropped mine....yet.) I do have a little bit of trouble with the control wheel if my hands are really cold!

[protege]

The biggest thing to remember and consider is that the Classic, if you drop it, will get damaged more. It has an actual hard drive in it.

My older iPod has unfortunately hit the floor a few times That was mainly because the clip on the cheap case I had kept bending. (I've since replaced that ) Didn't damage the iPod at all...or so I thought. After it quit working I found an FAQ online, about how to swap the hard drives. Very simple procedure, once you get the cover off. Unless you're hurling the thing at the floor, what usually happens, is that the drive's connector usually gets unseated. Gently pull it out, plug it in again, and it should work fine.

[Geek King]

Best Buy and Circuit City employees aren't paid on commission any more. He probably just didn't want to risk an argument.

I believe another member has said they are tracked on attach rates, though. Not the same as commission, but almost as annoying when you know exactly what you want when you go in.

[rerant]

My thooughts about the Ipod Touch:

It has no buttons you can feel. Therefore, when you're bundled up in the cold with your hands in your pockets, you can't as accurately find the buttons and press play/skip/whatever.

But you can on the ones with the wheels

That' an excellent point, especially since our winters can get a little hellish here and I'm one for gigantic fuzzy mittens. I usually keep my iPod inside one of my mittens, and with the buttons and wheel I can switch around songs easily.

I was sold for a newer Nano or Original today when I saw someone with a Touch on the bus. I was kind of spying on him (but we'll call it "covert shopping" ) and I saw how much junk you have to flip through just to get to your songs, then to the browser, and all the crap you have to do if (goodness forbid!) you wanted to change a song while you're using the Wifi browser.
PASS!

That's way too much work for me and definitely not work the novelty factor of a touch screen and Wifi.

[Reyneth]

The biggest thing to remember and consider is that the Classic, if you drop it, will get damaged more.

LOL I have an older model iPod (2nd gen maybe? the first one w/a click wheel before the color ones came out) and it's slowly dying. When it refuses to operate, I just whack it in my other hand or sometimes on the table not *hard* but enough so it knows I'm serious! Might take a few tries, but works every time!