Would never buy an apple product again. Bought a 5th gen iPod 11 months ago and lost audio through one of the headphone channels while on holidays. Relieved it was still under warranty I sent it back to apple. 2 days later I get an email telling me it wouldn't be fixed due to "accidental damage or misuse". After an hour on hold I got on to a customer rep who told me that he had a picture of my iPod that showed there was sand between the cover and the screen. I explained that it couldn't possibly be sand as it had never been near a beach and it may have been dust from the inside of my pocket where it lived for the last year (Apple only do a visual inspection they don't open the unit). He then went on to explain it was IMPOSSIBLE for dust to enter the unit without me damaging it and that they won't be honouring my warranty. Talk about doing your best to avoid replaceing a 10 dollar part.

Would recommend anyone thinking of purchasing one of these to look at a competing product before they consider one of these.

As for an iPod being hermetically sealed ... I suggest apple search youtube and they'll see people opening these devices with guitar pics.

...you had a problem and that isn't good and i can understand you weren't dealt with particularly well, however to suggest that just because you had an issue that everyone else will is daft.

The iPod sells in huge numbers and sure some folks have problems but i bet it's a very small number and the only issue i've had with any of my iPods in the past 6 years was dealt with very quickly, admittedly i went in store (maybe you should?) but walked out with a new iPod straight away.

They're just the best product out there.

I gave in and sold my soul for an iPod classic 160GB player. While I've only had it a few days It's serving me well and I definately am glad I paid the money for it. It doubles up as a nice tiny portable hard drive.

I've never had any problems with Apple warranty, I brought my gen 5 in with a weak battery after a year and a half, and not so much as a blink, instant new iPod.

My Macbook pro had a wonky superdrive, same thing not even a wait, instant replace, I wish other companies, say DELL for example were as good maybe I wouldn't have gone Mac.