Not surprisingly, Apple iPod users in our survey say that they like the cool design of the leading MP3 player.

John Pyne of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is clearly an iPod devotee--in fact, his family owns four of them. He and his wife opted for the slimmer, lighter Nano, while his teenage son and daughter prefer the hard-drive-equipped Classic, with its greater storage capacity. Nevertheless, Pyne and other PCW readers aren't reluctant to describe problems they've encountered and to suggest ways to improve the iPod.

"My son's Classic just died one time, and then all of a sudden it came back to life," says Pyne, who runs a disaster recovery consulting firm. "We've never been able to figure out what happened. It's still playing a couple of months later now."

Pyne would also like to see Apple upgrade the way iPods sync with iTunes. His home network connects up to nine computers at any one time--a desktop and a laptop for each family member, plus an extra home-office PC. But each iPod is designed to sync with only one specific computer, which can be a hassle, particularly for his kids. "They'd like to be able to go between their laptop and desktop, but they have to pick one or the other" to sync their players, he says.

Computer consultant Seth Novogrodsky of Berkeley, California, likes the reliability of his 80GB iPod Classic, which he listens to on his walk to work, but he recognizes its faults. "Apple is known for its ease of use, but I think they could've done a better job," he says. He'd like to see such design enhancements as a dedicated volume control, more menu shortcuts, and a built-in (rather than optional) FM tuner.