Best iPod w/ RockBox?

[ImagoX]

  Question for you iPod users:

  I have a iRiver MP3 player currently and I'm jealous of all the cool speaker and charger options that you iPod users have access to.  Up until RockBox, Ihad NEVER figured I'd ever buy one, though, since I positively LOATHE the idea that I have to load iTunes to use it - the 100% "drag and drop" hard-drive interface of the iRiver has spoiled me forever.

  I know from other posts here that you don't need iTunes for MUSIC playback on the iPod, but you DO need it for video playback.  I, however, have no plans to ever watch video on my MP3 player, so my question is:

  What is the best MUSIC ONLY iPod for use with the RockBox software?  Ideally I'd like something with a color screen that's fully supported by RockBox.  Hopefully, if I pass on video playback, I can save some $.  I'm looking for somethign in the 40-60GB range for my music files.

  Thanks in advance!

[Yotto]

IMO, your choices boil down to the 4G iPod Photo and the 5G iPod Video.  The Video comes in larger sizes (60 and 80, though the 80 isn't fully supported yet).  The Photo is *slightly* cheaper though.  I don't think the price difference is enough to use as a deciding factor though.  Many places sell the 30 gig Photo for the same price as the 30 gig Video.

I have a 30 gig Video, and love it.  I will likely not change DAPs until it dies, and when I do I'll likely buy another iPod.  And load Rockbox on it as soon as it's fully charged.

**EDIT** There's a 60 gig photo out there that I didn't know about.  The ones on Amazon are more expensive than the 60 gig videos though.

[jacobts]

i think that the 4g's are more expensive because they are not making them any more (just a theory)

[Febs]

They're not making the 60gb 5g either.  But Apple slashed prices on the 5g models to undercut the Zune.

[idiq]

If you don't care about video playback, get the 60gb Photo.

I started to ebay forone and actually found my 5G 60gb video listed as a photo, and got it for about 240 shipped.

The easiest way to spot an auction like this is see if there is a picture of the headphones coming out of the ipod. The photos posted in the one I won looked like they could go either to a photo or video, but the headphone jacks are in different locations.

The photo has a headphone jack in the center or the player, while the video has it on the right side.

Hope that helps...

[crescentfresh]

Battery life on the photo is substantially weaker at this point, and will continue be until audio codecs are optimized.  I generally get between 5 and 6 hours of battery life out of my 60 gig photo with rockbox, whereas I've seen numerous reports in these forums that people get closer to 10 hours out of an ipod video with rockbox on it.  You might want to take that into consideration if you intend to exclusively use rockbox.

[soap]

Battery life on the photo is substantially weaker at this point, and will continue be until audio codecs are optimized.  I generally get between 5 and 6 hours of battery life out of my 60 gig photo with rockbox, whereas I've seen numerous reports in these forums that people get closer to 10 hours out of an ipod video with rockbox on it.  You might want to take that into consideration if you intend to exclusively use rockbox.

The 5th generation 60 gig model has the best battery life of them all, due to its larger battery.  Not to mention the 60 gig model has 64MB of RAM, which isn't being used by Rockbox yet, but there is a working (?) patch in the tracker to use it.  The 30MB ipod video only has 32MB of RAM for buffering.

[nls]

You might also want to consider that the 4G has an annoying crash bug that no one has really fixed yet. And you won't be able to use any "cool" speaker options with rockbox if they communicate with the ipod via the accessory connector.

[Chronon]

I don't own any of the speaker systems for the iPod, but it seems to me that they should only use the line out, in which case it should work fine.

[crescentfresh]

You might also want to consider that the 4G has an annoying crash bug that no one has really fixed yet. And you won't be able to use any "cool" speaker options with rockbox if they communicate with the ipod via the accessory connector.

Although  there's no official fix for the crash bug, mikeage compiles a build almost every day for this issues, which has to do with frequency scaling:
http://mikeage.net/content/rockbox/index.php

I haven't had a single crash since starting to use those builds.  I still would not recommend seeking out a 4G though just to save a few bucks when you can get better battery life out of the 5Gs.

[ImagoX]

The 5th generation 60 gig model has the best battery life of them all, due to its larger battery.  Not to mention the 60 gig model has 64MB of RAM, which isn't being used by Rockbox yet, but there is a working (?) patch in the tracker to use it.  The 30MB ipod video only has 32MB of RAM for buffering.

  Seeing as how the 60GB version is no longer available (Amazon no longer lists it), and the 80GB 5.5 video is not supported by Rockbox, I'm thinking the 30GB 5.5 version might be the way for me to go.  Unless there's hope that someday soon the 80GB 5.5 video version will be supported one day?  Is it primarily a video issue (meaning that if I never download vodeo t the unit I should be OK) or what?

[lexicon]

  Seeing as how the 60GB version is no longer available (Amazon no longer lists it), and the 80GB 5.5 video is not supported by Rockbox, I'm thinking the 30GB 5.5 version might be the way for me to go.  Unless there's hope that someday soon the 80GB 5.5 video version will be supported one day?  Is it primarily a video issue (meaning that if I never download vodeo t the unit I should be OK) or what?

follow this thread:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=7738.0

where you'll see that, unfortunatley, 80 GB 5.5g is still a work in progress to run Rockbox at all, music, videos, whatever, it doesn't work yet.

The experts say it will work, probably, sometime...could be tomorrow, could be in months...as long as there are skilled folks devoted to making the breakthrough.

5g 30 or 60 -> ok
5.5g 30 ->ok
5.5g 80 -> no


Maybe there's a refurb 60 available from an ipod repair place?

[ImagoX]

  I'm not even sure where I'd start looking for such a thing.  Can anyone recommend a good (read as: reputable) refurb place that might carry items such as this?  

[soap]

 I'm not even sure where I'd start looking for such a thing.  Can anyone recommend a good (read as: reputable) refurb place that might carry items such as this?  

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=Certified&esvt=GOUSB4778443&esvadt=999999-0-53967-1&esvid=1839
Check often as the inventory changes.

[c0utta]

Hi guys,

I still use Archos Jukebox Recorders (upgraded to 120GB) but the main issue that I have is the amount of noise and hiss when listening at low volumes.  The hard drive spin up noise (with a good set of cans) becomes really distracting.

For this reason I've also been considering an iPod, so can anyone give me their thoughts and experience on the amount of noise and/or static produced?  I read that the 5g had worked out all the noise issues, but is this correct?

Cheers,

c0utta