<p>Heres a tip if youre thinking of buying an iPod as a graduation gift and are a tightwad like me about paying so much for this gadget. I found that if you have a Discover card, and a 1% cashback bonus sitting in your account, you can use it to buy an iPod at pretty good savings. What you do is tell Discover to redeem your cashback bonus with Sharper Image because they are one of the few merchants that will double your award, AND they have iPods. Discover then sends you a Sharper Image gift card for double the amount you redeem, which you then take to their store and use like cash to pay for your iPod or anything else you want there. </p>
<p>Redeeming has to be in multiples of $20 or $40, which will get you either a $40 or $80 gift card. So for example if you have $80 in cashback bonus, you can redeem it for two $80 gift cards. Then if you go buy, say a $200 4GB iPod mini, it ends up only costing you $40 out of pocket plus tax. </p>
<p>I just did this and wanted to wait to be sure this actually worked before posting about it, but the process was very smooth. I had a big bonus accumulated over several years, so I ordered 4 gift cards, and received them in under a week. Normally I would never buy anything from Sharper Image as I think of them as a pricey, useless-gadget store. But right now they have a pretty good stock of iPods, including the shuffle, the mini and the photo. They didnt hesitate taking the gift cards as payment.</p>
<p>I would buy more stuff with my Discover Card, but they haven’t raised my limit in like 5 years so I will never earn anything cashback. Visa raises my limit like a grand every six months! I am soo in debt LOL</p>
<p>Another great way to save on iPods is their “Cram and Jam” promotion. It only works if you buy an iBook at the same time, but the deal gets you $200 off the iPod. I did this for my iPod and ended up only having to pay $70 for a brand new iPod!</p>
<p>I recommend getting one at Best Buy and purchasing their extended 3yr warranty because it includes battery replacement. The cost of a replacement battery is much more than the cost of the warranty and is usually needed within 18-24 months.</p>
<p>Taramom-
If I do my math right, your cost was $120. I think you forgot to consider the original $80 cashback that you started with that you doubled for the gift cards. While it isn’t directly out of your pocket, it is your money. It’s still a great price!</p>
<p>If you have a Fry’s Electronics near you, they just had the 4GB Ipod on sale for $174. However, if you don’t “have to have” the Ipod name brand, I would highly recommend one made by Zen Creative. This brand is well known on the college campuses. Fry’s has a 30GB Zen creative MP3 player for $189. It’s a phenomenal deal. They (Fry’s) usually have either the 20, 30 or 40GB player on sale for a great price, and you can order it on line at <a href=“http://www.outpost.com%5B/url%5D”>www.outpost.com</a>. Compare: Costco sells the 20GB Ipod for $279. You can get a 30GB Zen Creative for less than the 4GB Ipod. It’s not quite as small (its not a mini), but my s. got a free Zen t-shirt with his-- and I think when he bought the 30GB he got it for $179. Such a deal!</p>
<p>Having just made the huge mistake of purchasing an Ipod for my daughter’s birthday, I need to second Jym626’s suggestion of an alternative product - if your kid has a windows based computer. I don’t know about the Zen per se, but getting the Ipod to work with our windows computers was a major headache. I say computers because it never did work with my d’s lap top - it will work with my desktop, but only if we plug the USB port in the back of the computer - we can’t use the port conveniently located on the front of the computer. I had many calls to Apple tech support- they had to replace the first Ipod which turned out to be defective, but I couldn’t get the 2nd one formatted properly to work with Windows without their help – and I finally had a long conversation with an Apple tech who told me that ALL of their tech support calls have to do with Ipod/Windows compatibility problems.</p>
<p>So the Ipod may be a terrific product for Mac users – and I am sure there are many Windows users who have managed to get things working without quite the same aggravation - but I definitely made a $350 mistake to go for the brand name I was familiar with rather than shopping around for something which came with software designed for the Windows platform.</p>
<p>Calmom-
Did you buy the Ipod + HP version? I guess that’s a question I probably know the answer to- as I’ve not heard people with the Ipod+HP having compatability problems. That said, I’d still recommend the Zen or other less pricey non-name brand MP3’s. The Zen Micro (a smaller player) has a built in FM receiver (you have to buy an extra accessory for that fot the Ipod). Also, another BIG plus for the Zen- it has a replaceable battery- The Ipod’s is not removable-- you have to get the whole thing changed out when the battery goes. Big expense. Big hassle. How did the impractical, overpriced Ipod get so popular??? Marketing??? There were a gazillion websites saying you could win a free ipod if you filled out a bunch of stuff (not free, though, by the time you did all the stuff onthe website), but maybe it worked. Ahhhh… Madison Avenue… However, not all marketing majors are so successful. The waitress waiting our table at dinner tonight had been a marketing major. (But I digress…)</p>
<p>calmom, I bought an Ipod for d at Xmas, it was shipped all the way from China and it works with Windows. I know d did not have any problem at all and we don’t have Mac. I’m surprised about the problem you mentioned. I have Dell and Compaq brand for computers</p>
<p>I have an iPod as do my 3 children, and I also have an ipod shuffle (for running). We all have Windows laptops and have had no compatibility problems at all. We got the Apple brand, with the discount through the college bookstore, and I bought one (when the college bookstore ran out) at the Apple store. </p>
<p>I love my iPod :). Then I saw the article in the NY Times about how it is losing its “cool” factor because old people (like President Bush, like me), are using them :(.</p>
<p>I have a shuffle but I am giving it to my husband , cause I don’t like not being able to select a song easily.
I am going to get a photo ipod for me :)</p>
<p>Yes, you’re quite correct for my example, but still, where can you even buy a $200 iPod mini for $120? Apple won’t hardly let anyone discount their products, except for when I sometimes see them $20-$30 less on Amazon or Buy.com. Sometimes more when they’re near the end of a product cycle.</p>
<p>Sure, I could have credited the cashback bonus back to my Discover account, but I just treat it like free money. Doubled, my 4 gift cards came to $320, and I got the iPod photo which cost $350. One can say it only cost me $30 and another can say it cost me $190. It’s all good as far as I’m concerned!</p>
<p>Sharper Image also had a promotion where the second item you buy is 20% off, so I asked if I could get the Apple Care warranty too but of course they said Apple products were excluded. But you can get it from the Apple store with the education discount for $47, normally $59. You can buy it anytime within 1 year of the iPod purchase, so I may wait a bit.</p>
<p>My other bargain was the IM3 iPod speakers that will go with her gift. These had a pretty good review in the WSJ recently and one of the reasons I liked them is their portability plus they come with a little remote. They retail everywhere for $180 including Sharper Image, but Buy.com has them now for $123, with free shipping and no tax. First time customers also get a $5 off coupon. I have seen several “special deals” on this at Buy.com and other electronics websites for $99 or even $79 but it is the older version, not the IM3 that Mossberg reviewed and no remote, so read the descriptions very carefully.</p>
<p>Jym, I have an Ipod photo. Very big headache and I did some online research and found a variety of threads on tech boards of people complaining of similar issues. Various driver incompatibility & device conflict issues, + possible problems with XP 2nd edition.</p>
<p>I love my Ipod mini even got free engraving from apple (purchased one for me and D before it actually hit the stores). The extended warranty is great and is definitely recommended. When I had a problem, they send a repack kit and I got it replaced within a week (had to wait for the engraving). </p>
<p>Now they have a genius bar at the Apple store in SOHO if you have a problem, contact them, they give you an appointment and willfix your Ipod on the spot. IF they can not ifx it they will replace it on the spot (my sister the gadget queen told me that). She said the one bad thing about going there is that it can easily become addictive as she ended up purchasing some $150 headphones.</p>
<p>We’ve had good experiences with Apple. Older son’s iPod was upgraded to a model that can store more songs without his requesting it; he got it through “Cram and Jam” and Apple couldn’t keep up with the demand for the lower model that was supposed to be part of the deal. Younger son’s iPod mini kept saying the battery was low, when it couldn’t possibly be. Bought the mini online, but took it to the local Apple store. Two days later, they called us and said it was defective and immediately replaced it. Lower prices on the iPod can be had by going to Apple’s site for educators (I teach at a college).</p>
<p>Hey-- maybe all you educators can get discounts for us!! Yes, please, maybe?? We’re all your “consultants” – ergo adjunct faculty members, yes???</p>
<p>Samsclub had what would have been a great deal if I wanted to spend the $$-- For $319 they had a 20GB Ipod mini that came with an FM adapter and a car charger, if I recall. I thought it might have also come with the external speakers, but they might have been sold separately. I just can’t recall for sure. They were all on the shelf together, and I cant remember. (The website isn’t helping either-- it doesnt say.) Anyway-- it was more than I was willing to spend on my younger s who just <em>had</em> to have the Ipod name brand for his bday. (He had a 256MB off-brand player with an FM tuner, but wasn’t happy with it). He is not usually brand-conscious. As I said earlier, older s is much more interested in the best value. He is a great bargain-shopper.</p>
<p>And Taramom-- yes, I said you had gotten a good price. Congrats. I wish I could plan far enough in advance to be able to apply for the giftcards form Discover, get them in the mail (I assume you can’t download them from Discover-- that would be too easy!), find the time to get to a mall or wherever the closest Sharper Image store is… etc. I bought my s’s Ipod at Costco 2 days b4 his birrthday! And… gosh, Discover has a tiered cashback bonus plan. You dont get the full 1% back til you’ve spent $5000 in eligible purchases. Before that, it is only like .05%. So, you get $25 cashback for the first 5K in spending, and then you have to spend another $16k to get an additional $160 in cashback credits. And the minor annoyance with Discover is that they changed their policy so that you can only get credit in $20 increments-- So… you have to really plan ahead , be quite disciplined, and spend a lot to get all that. Too bad we can’t pay tuition on our chargecards. I’d heard some schools used to let you, but it got too expensive for them to have to pay the percentage back to the chargecard company.</p>
<p>Anyway-- didn’t mean to digress from the topic or hijack the thread. I love to be able to share great deals/finds/ bargains! Very helpful!! So, along that line-- go to <a href=“http://www.ultimatecoupons.com%5B/url%5D”>www.ultimatecoupons.com</a> before shopping. You can often find great store or on-line coupons. Just select the letter of the alphabet corresponding to the store you want to shop at and see what they have. Hey! Right now there is a $20 off a purchase at Sharperimage.com through the end of May! </p>
<p>Maybe we should start a bargain shoppers thread?? Post deals, finds (like the weds. jcpenney deal) etc! I’ll start one.</p>
<p>Give a creditcard co. $1500 to tie up (minimum balance) and subject myself to potential maintenance fees, per-check fees and and service charges if I don’t do their online billpay service to their satisfaction? Yuk. No thanks.</p>
<p>LOL, too many conditions for me also. Nice to know about if Citibank checking was something you might sign up for anyway. Just like the Discover idea–only really works for those who just happen to already have $ sitting there.</p>
<p>Another good site that posts current deals on electronics, including Dell, Amazon, and iPods is:</p>
<p>it seems to me that the real expense is the songs, not the player. At 99 cents each, it could get pretty expensive to load up a player that holds hundreds of songs. Where do people get the music?</p>