Customer Rating: 
Summary: 4G ipods, the most unreliable one you can buy
Comment: Be warned folks, the 4th generation of ipod is the most unreliable in the lineup. If you're looking for a cheaper old version of ipod (who needs video anyway) go for the 3G. My almost 2 year old ipod popped up with the notorious sad face icon out of nowhere and is now unusable. I have taken very good care of it in that time, never even dropping it once. I called the NYC Apple Store to ask about getting it fixed and was told I was better off buying a new one! How about that? Nice customer service. Needless to say when I do get around to replacing my broken mp3 player it won't be one from Apple. Obviously I will miss the use of ease I have come to expect but the hardware is simply not reliable enough.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than expected, 4G 40GB iPod
Comment: You don't find many of these new and still wrapped in plastic. I needed one with firewire, so this is what I bought. It was packaged just fine and I received it via UPS just in time. I'm just not fond of using UPS. As for the actual iPod, I love it. I had a 2nd generation for a long time, but after botching it up, I needed a new one. I would have gone with a video iPod, but both Macs I own do not have USB 2.0. Transfer rates would have been s l o w. I needed one with firewire and enough room to hold my music. I can't believe Apple abandoned firewire on the newer models. Mine even came with the dock. Apple has abandoned that notion as well in the new iPods. Having a dock really is nice. The price on this one might have been a bit much considering its age, but you can't beat finding a 4th gen 40GB iPod in new condition this far down the road. I'm protecting the screen after seeing scratches on my brother's 20GB 4G. I'm more careful with my stuff though, so even without the screen protector, I doubt I'll see much damage. I'm not taking any chances though.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Worth the Price
Comment: Apple Computers should be ashamed of themselves. I received my 40 GB ipod as a 2004 Christmas present and the problems began after only 6 months. Though I sould say, I really loved my ipod before it crapped out on me. I see a lot of other customers have had similar trouble with this thing and I just want to cast my vote of disapproval. The problems are: The computer/itunes not recognizing the ipod. The hard drive spinning up but never starting. The hard drive crashing and losing all data resulting in having to reset the ipod to factory settings and reinstalling the software and after all that having the same problem happen again.
After hearing all the horror stories about Apple's customer service I figure it's not worth trying to repair. Since this model has been discontinued, there's no point in telling people not to buy it now. I only hope that the new ipods are better. I'll be reading the reviews very carefully if and when I decide to get another ipod. Live and learn.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The 40 Gigabyte drives are defective
Comment: Got myself this 40 gig iPod from Amazon for Christmas 2004. In early 2005 Apple introduced the 60 gig iPod. (Missed it by that much!) Mine worked fine for 7 months then the hard drive kept spinning up, over and over, but would never engage and the screen displayed a sad face icon. Went to Apple's support site and tried their suggestions but when you get that sad face icon it basically needs service. The site gave me a form to fill out to return the iPod to Apple by mail. (I didn't know there was an Apple store about 30 minutes (one way) from me and the site didn't bother to inform me of that.) Apple sends me an empty box overnight. I slip the iPod inside and call DHL back to come pick it up. An hour later it was on its way back to Apple, overnight. They check it in the next day but it takes 3 days before they get around to sending me a replacement. Another overnight shipment and after a week I get my replacement iPod. Cost me over $30 in shipping to do this because Apple will only pay for shipping for the first 6 months of your 1-year warranty. They also don't offer a cheaper non-overnight alternative. I did love the iPod when it worked so I figured I'd better protect the nearly $400 investment with Apple's extended warranty. About $70 more. With that Apple would pay shipping during the warranty period.
So I pull out my replacement iPod, turn it on and -voila!- sad face icon! Right out of the box! Call them up. Ask if they will send me a new one and I'll slip this broken one in the return box. Nope. Not their process. So we do the empty-box-to-me-overnight, full-box-to-them-overnight, three-days-to-send-a-replacement-overnight and a-week-later-I get-my-3rd-replacement-iPod tango. Actually, it's the same one I sent them with a letter saying they were able to fix it without any repairs to the hardware. I turn it on and ta-da! Sad face icon! I'm getting steamed. Do a little poking about the Apple site and find there is an Apple store in a mall 30 minutes from me. WHAT?! I don't have to do the weeklong mail repair? I make an online appointment with the Apple Genius Bar and show up right on time. Genius hears my story, sees the problem, will replace, but they are out of stock of the 40 gig iPods, might take a week to get them in. Argh! Okay, 2 days later I get a call from the store telling me my iPod is ready for pickup. They tell me no appt necessary when just picking up so I go at my convenience. Genius gives me 4th iPod. I turn it on. Bada-bing! Sad face icon, right out of the box, right in front of Genius's face! He gets another one from the back. Holy smokes, the 5th iPod works! I take it home and spend several hours recharging and then uploading my 20 gigs of music, audiobooks, and podcasts.
5th iPod lasts about 2 months and I'm back at the Genius bar again. This genius tells me they had a bad batch of the 40 gig drives when I got my last replacement but he's gonna give me a new one which will be fine. Uh-huh. My 6th 40 gig iPod works a few months then does the same damned thing with the hard drive spinning up over and over in and endless loop but never being able to read the contents. Back to the Genius bar and onto replacement iPod #7.
So $500, 4 hours of driving + gas costs, and 7 iPods later, I have 4 months left on my extended warranty. Cats have nine lives do iPods? It's pretty clear the 40 gig drives are defective and "the bad batch" is the ONLY batch they have and rather than upgrading customers to a product that works they just keep feeding us the same supply of defective junk until the warranty runs out and we're stuck with a costly repair. This really is deserving of a class action lawsuit. Apple should be ashamed of themselves. I laugh when I see their anti-PC commercials. I've never had this much trouble with any other brand of computer equipment. If they don't make good on this defective product I'll be switching to Creative Zen. Really shameful.
UPDATE: iPod #7 hard drive failed AGAIN, just days before warranty was up. On to iPod #8 now with a 90 day warranty. Wonder if it'll make it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: death on clockwork
Comment: believe the 'one year rule', I've had my iPod since last march ('05) and it worked great until last week. All of a sudden I noticed the battery wasn't holding a charge, then my computer and itunes wouldn't recognize it, and after resetting it (ie erasing all my music from it) and reinstalling itunes I can't get it to work. I'm hoping when I go to the Apple store that they can figure something out, I don't feel like getting it 'serviced' for $250.
Summary: 4G ipods, the most unreliable one you can buy
Comment: Be warned folks, the 4th generation of ipod is the most unreliable in the lineup. If you're looking for a cheaper old version of ipod (who needs video anyway) go for the 3G. My almost 2 year old ipod popped up with the notorious sad face icon out of nowhere and is now unusable. I have taken very good care of it in that time, never even dropping it once. I called the NYC Apple Store to ask about getting it fixed and was told I was better off buying a new one! How about that? Nice customer service. Needless to say when I do get around to replacing my broken mp3 player it won't be one from Apple. Obviously I will miss the use of ease I have come to expect but the hardware is simply not reliable enough.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than expected, 4G 40GB iPod
Comment: You don't find many of these new and still wrapped in plastic. I needed one with firewire, so this is what I bought. It was packaged just fine and I received it via UPS just in time. I'm just not fond of using UPS. As for the actual iPod, I love it. I had a 2nd generation for a long time, but after botching it up, I needed a new one. I would have gone with a video iPod, but both Macs I own do not have USB 2.0. Transfer rates would have been s l o w. I needed one with firewire and enough room to hold my music. I can't believe Apple abandoned firewire on the newer models. Mine even came with the dock. Apple has abandoned that notion as well in the new iPods. Having a dock really is nice. The price on this one might have been a bit much considering its age, but you can't beat finding a 4th gen 40GB iPod in new condition this far down the road. I'm protecting the screen after seeing scratches on my brother's 20GB 4G. I'm more careful with my stuff though, so even without the screen protector, I doubt I'll see much damage. I'm not taking any chances though.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Worth the Price
Comment: Apple Computers should be ashamed of themselves. I received my 40 GB ipod as a 2004 Christmas present and the problems began after only 6 months. Though I sould say, I really loved my ipod before it crapped out on me. I see a lot of other customers have had similar trouble with this thing and I just want to cast my vote of disapproval. The problems are: The computer/itunes not recognizing the ipod. The hard drive spinning up but never starting. The hard drive crashing and losing all data resulting in having to reset the ipod to factory settings and reinstalling the software and after all that having the same problem happen again.
After hearing all the horror stories about Apple's customer service I figure it's not worth trying to repair. Since this model has been discontinued, there's no point in telling people not to buy it now. I only hope that the new ipods are better. I'll be reading the reviews very carefully if and when I decide to get another ipod. Live and learn.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The 40 Gigabyte drives are defective
Comment: Got myself this 40 gig iPod from Amazon for Christmas 2004. In early 2005 Apple introduced the 60 gig iPod. (Missed it by that much!) Mine worked fine for 7 months then the hard drive kept spinning up, over and over, but would never engage and the screen displayed a sad face icon. Went to Apple's support site and tried their suggestions but when you get that sad face icon it basically needs service. The site gave me a form to fill out to return the iPod to Apple by mail. (I didn't know there was an Apple store about 30 minutes (one way) from me and the site didn't bother to inform me of that.) Apple sends me an empty box overnight. I slip the iPod inside and call DHL back to come pick it up. An hour later it was on its way back to Apple, overnight. They check it in the next day but it takes 3 days before they get around to sending me a replacement. Another overnight shipment and after a week I get my replacement iPod. Cost me over $30 in shipping to do this because Apple will only pay for shipping for the first 6 months of your 1-year warranty. They also don't offer a cheaper non-overnight alternative. I did love the iPod when it worked so I figured I'd better protect the nearly $400 investment with Apple's extended warranty. About $70 more. With that Apple would pay shipping during the warranty period.
So I pull out my replacement iPod, turn it on and -voila!- sad face icon! Right out of the box! Call them up. Ask if they will send me a new one and I'll slip this broken one in the return box. Nope. Not their process. So we do the empty-box-to-me-overnight, full-box-to-them-overnight, three-days-to-send-a-replacement-overnight and a-week-later-I get-my-3rd-replacement-iPod tango. Actually, it's the same one I sent them with a letter saying they were able to fix it without any repairs to the hardware. I turn it on and ta-da! Sad face icon! I'm getting steamed. Do a little poking about the Apple site and find there is an Apple store in a mall 30 minutes from me. WHAT?! I don't have to do the weeklong mail repair? I make an online appointment with the Apple Genius Bar and show up right on time. Genius hears my story, sees the problem, will replace, but they are out of stock of the 40 gig iPods, might take a week to get them in. Argh! Okay, 2 days later I get a call from the store telling me my iPod is ready for pickup. They tell me no appt necessary when just picking up so I go at my convenience. Genius gives me 4th iPod. I turn it on. Bada-bing! Sad face icon, right out of the box, right in front of Genius's face! He gets another one from the back. Holy smokes, the 5th iPod works! I take it home and spend several hours recharging and then uploading my 20 gigs of music, audiobooks, and podcasts.
5th iPod lasts about 2 months and I'm back at the Genius bar again. This genius tells me they had a bad batch of the 40 gig drives when I got my last replacement but he's gonna give me a new one which will be fine. Uh-huh. My 6th 40 gig iPod works a few months then does the same damned thing with the hard drive spinning up over and over in and endless loop but never being able to read the contents. Back to the Genius bar and onto replacement iPod #7.
So $500, 4 hours of driving + gas costs, and 7 iPods later, I have 4 months left on my extended warranty. Cats have nine lives do iPods? It's pretty clear the 40 gig drives are defective and "the bad batch" is the ONLY batch they have and rather than upgrading customers to a product that works they just keep feeding us the same supply of defective junk until the warranty runs out and we're stuck with a costly repair. This really is deserving of a class action lawsuit. Apple should be ashamed of themselves. I laugh when I see their anti-PC commercials. I've never had this much trouble with any other brand of computer equipment. If they don't make good on this defective product I'll be switching to Creative Zen. Really shameful.
UPDATE: iPod #7 hard drive failed AGAIN, just days before warranty was up. On to iPod #8 now with a 90 day warranty. Wonder if it'll make it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: death on clockwork
Comment: believe the 'one year rule', I've had my iPod since last march ('05) and it worked great until last week. All of a sudden I noticed the battery wasn't holding a charge, then my computer and itunes wouldn't recognize it, and after resetting it (ie erasing all my music from it) and reinstalling itunes I can't get it to work. I'm hoping when I go to the Apple store that they can figure something out, I don't feel like getting it 'serviced' for $250.