Are ipods reliable?? Got mine yesterday and already having problems

D

Diseaseboy

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 27, 2001
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I ordered a refurbished/recertified 20g Ipod directly from Apple.com this week. I assumed it wouldn't have been too risky buying a refurb since it was direct from Apple. Well the Ipod keeps locking up and all I can hear is the hard drive constantly spinning up and down with a clicking noise in between. I reset it a few times and even updated the firmware and did a complete erase and it didn't help. Now I can;t even get it to initialize. Not happy at all about this.......I called Apple and did talk to a very nice tech and they are going to send me a new one. However, I'm having reservations now and am considering just RMA'n it and getting a non-Ipod. This Ipod is supposed to replace a Zen Micro (wife needed more room) which we had zero issues with. Should I give Apple one more chance? or was I stupid to buy a refurb anyway from them?
 
Buying almost anything refurb gives you more of a chance for a failure. ipods generally hold up pretty good other then things like the battery which like the battery in everything has a set life. Also the ipod has a lot of different cases, straps, etc that make it a nice unit to have.
 
give it a chance, i got a ipod mini when they were in there first gen and the battery never lasted anywhere close to 8hrs. So the day before my warranty was up i went to a apple store and got a new one because mine didnt pass the test at the store. The reason it took so long to replace it is usually lasted like 4-5 but then it got bad and down to like 1-2 minutes...
 
Definately give them another shot. Buying a refurbished anything is risky, but usually it works fine. They are great with customer service so any problems you encounter, they will fix within reasonable time. The iPod is a great media player and more reliable than any others that I know of.

If you really don't trust iPod and want to switch (I don't reccommend it) but go Creative. They have the best players that are comparable to the iPods at a reasonable price.

But try iPod again and see. Not only do are they very reliable and have great customer service, they also make so many accessories for them that you can change them and customize them how you want. Also, there are companies and individual people all over the web and on this forum that will paint it to your liking if you want something a little different than the generic Apple White.

 
I'd stick with Apple, iTunes is easy to install and works great, everyone talks about iPod and pretty much everything else is an imposter. Well unless the Creative Nomad Jukebox counts the 6GB player back from 2000. Apple has great technical support and you might even get a new iPod 20GB in the mail instead of a refurb, I have seen that before with Apple.
 
DeadlyAura said:
If you really don't trust iPod and want to switch (I don't reccommend it) but go Creative. They have the best players that are comparable to the iPods at a reasonable price.
Click to expand...
I'd have to disagree with their rampant quality control problems (headphone jack issues on several generations of players, releasing a player with a virus on it, etc). Iriver is probably a better alternative.
 
I'll second the headphone jack issue. Had tried my hand at repairing my neighbor's Zen becase it wouldn't come out stereo unless you wiggled the headphone jack. He went and replaced it with the Zen 2.0 and a month later, same thing. Bad headphone jack design.

As far as the refurb'ed iPod, take it to an Apple Care store and get them to test it for you. They can run a diagnostic on it in order to see what's failing as by your description, there is definitely a problem.

-E
 
I had one of the NOMAD Jukeboxes back in 2000, it was a 6GB hard drive based MP3 player, It would skip through 320kbs songs because the processor wasn't fast enough and the interface they had crash all of the time. I just don't think Creative's quality control and customer satisfaction is up there with Apple's.
 
Extremely unreliable! Thats why they are the #1 music player in the world.
 
AppaYipYip said:
Extremely unreliable! Thats why they are the #1 music player in the world.
Click to expand...

Rofl. Its true, if they weren't reliable they wouldn't be #1. :p

 
Thanks guys........I'll give them one more chance. I was impressed with their customer service.
 
Everyone gets DOA products every once in a while, I think you just had bad luck once. I think Apple makes reliable products with the advantage that if you ever have a problem you can come into an Apple Store Genius Bar and get your stuff fixed right there most of the time. I don't know of many other stores that let you do that.
 
Many of my friends have iPods, and they don't have any problems with them. On the whole, I'd say they're very reliable.

Me, on the other hand... I've had nothing but problems with my iPods. I'm on my 3rd or 4th now. :( But I'm putting that down as bad luck, and nothing more.
 
I bought my 20Gb iPod brand new and haven't had a single problem with it. If they are going to send you a new one for free then go for it! I just got into Podcasting too and they are great to listen to on the way to work. No company can eliminate all hardware problems, that's just the way things are.
 
Diseaseboy said:
I ordered a refurbished/recertified 20g Ipod directly from Apple.com this week. I assumed it wouldn't have been too risky buying a refurb since it was direct from Apple. Well the Ipod keeps locking up and all I can hear is the hard drive constantly spinning up and down with a clicking noise in between. I reset it a few times and even updated the firmware and did a complete erase and it didn't help. Now I can;t even get it to initialize. Not happy at all about this.......I called Apple and did talk to a very nice tech and they are going to send me a new one. However, I'm having reservations now and am considering just RMA'n it and getting a non-Ipod. This Ipod is supposed to replace a Zen Micro (wife needed more room) which we had zero issues with. Should I give Apple one more chance? or was I stupid to buy a refurb anyway from them?
Click to expand...


Exactly what my ipod is doing, I went into the apple store with my ipod before the warranty ran out and they did some diagnostic and they told me to go home there is nothing wrong with my ipod. Now a month later and no warranty the same thing is happeneing again!

Ipods are not durable, in my opinion.
 
hmmm.....My 4g ipod just broke 20 days after the measly 1 year warrenty ended. I picked up a 60gb video and have had to hard reset it about 2 times already :rolleyes: . I don't know...I've have had about 3 creative mp3 players and they have never given me a problem.

a little aside... the 6gb creative player was realeased before the ipod. I had one...didn't fit in your pocket....but lasted a good 3+ years.

I think apple products would be great if they were about half the price....
 
Jpitzo said:
hmmm.....My 4g ipod just broke 20 days after the measly 1 year warrenty ended. I picked up a 60gb video and have had to hard reset it about 2 times already :rolleyes: . I don't know...I've have had about 3 creative mp3 players and they have never given me a problem.

a little aside... the 6gb creative player was realeased before the ipod. I had one...didn't fit in your pocket....but lasted a good 3+ years.

I think apple products would be great if they were about half the price....
Click to expand...

Somebody could say the complete opposite: Crap luck wih Creative, long living Apple products. Point is, you can't guarantee everyone's experience is going to be the same.
 
Ok, this may sound a little rough but when you here it start spinning, HIT IT with the palm of your hand all over the backside of it. The HDD may be off balance from shipping. This is what happened to me. Just try it, its what worked for me. If that doesnt work, open up the iPod and remount the HDD. To me it sounds like you are getting the same bwwwWWWEEEE click click click BWWwwwooo noise. Just try it, thats what I did.
 
I work at bby and I would say we see a minimum 5 per day, most of the times they can be fixed with a simple reset, or restore. However the 4th gens Ive seen tons of. One day I had 2 customers both come up within 2 mins of each other both with defective ones. One week our service center had received 1,100 ipods for repair, that doesnt mean all were defective but thats alot of ipods for people to have problems with in a weeks time.

me personally ill never buy one just cause im tired of dealing with them at work. I use a 60GB creative ZEN Xtra
 
Javelin3o4 said:
I work at bby and I would say we see a minimum 5 per day, most of the times they can be fixed with a simple reset, or restore. However the 4th gens Ive seen tons of. One day I had 2 customers both come up within 2 mins of each other both with defective ones. One week our service center had received 1,100 ipods for repair, that doesnt mean all were defective but thats alot of ipods for people to have problems with in a weeks time.

me personally ill never buy one just cause im tired of dealing with them at work. I use a 60GB creative ZEN Xtra
Click to expand...

I'd be willing to bet you see so many at Best Buy because it is the de facto place for John Q. Public to take their shit when it's "broken". That and because of the service plan that Best Buy damn near forces on their customers when purchasing anything.

To the OP, I'd most certainly give Apple another shot to make this right and just chalk this one up to a little fluke. ;)
 
UPDATE: I got my replacement back already today. I called Apple Sat- Got a shpment box Monday- sent it out Tues- and got a replacement today. Wow, am I impressed with Apple's service. So far so good- I loaded all the music back onto the new player and everything seems to work fine.

Scott
 
glad to hear things look good there...you also have to remember that over 14 MILLION iPods were sold during the Christmas quarter so if you assume a failure rate of .01% (don't know what it actually is) you would have 140k bad units..sucks for those people but it is an electronic device...it happens :)

 
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