The Pod people got me

Author's Rating:

Pros: Features, sound, video, ease of use, accessories available

Cons: Scratches easily, earbuds don't match, can't delete a song on the go, price is steep

The Bottom Line: 
A wonderful small sized player with a huge capacity. Easy to use and excellent sound quality.

Author's Review
I had an mp3 player that worked perfectly fine for the last few years – it was a 20 GB capacity and had a 15 hour battery life. I loved everything about it except that for one thing – all the really useful and cool accessories out on the market were for the iPod. I resisted buying an iPod just to be able to get the accessories until the new Video iPod hit the stores last month. I finally succumbed to the lure of the iPod for two reasons which were that I had pretty much reached my 20GB limit on my old player and that I wanted the pretty full color screen capable of playing music videos, TV shows, and my own videos. OK, three reasons, I also dearly wanted some of the wonderful accessories that I wasn’t able to get for the old player.

I finally purchased my brand new 60GB Black Video iPod just before Halloween. I have taken it with me everywhere and I’ve been playing it constantly since the day I got it. For the most part, I am totally in love and am extremely pleased with my new iPod. There are a few minor things that I’m not thrilled about, but I can live with them. I’ll explain those little irritations later in the review.

Since this is my first iPod, I am writing a complete review – not a review that only contains the differences from the 3rd or 4th generation to the new 5th generation, or 5G, iPod. This is probably going to be long so if you are already familiar with iPod, then I’ve used bold subtitles for each category and you can skip ahead to the stuff you are interested in. If you are like me and haven’t had the iPod experience before, then I hope that the entire review will be helpful to you.

What’s in the box
When you buy it you have a choice of Black or White. When you open up the box – which itself was much smaller than I expected at 1.5” wide and 5.25” square – you get the:
iPod
Soft sleeve for the iPod
iPod dock adapter
USB connector
Earbuds
2 sets of earbud covers
software CD
iPod + iTunes Quick Start guide
Apple One Year Limited Warranty sheet
Apple Software License Agreement, Single User License
2 Apple stickers

Getting Started
Obviously the iPod comes without any music or video content on it so you must complete a few simple steps in order to start listening, watching and playing with all the features. The first thing to do is install the software which installs the iPod software as well as iTunes. You can also register your iPod during this part of the set up. Once the software is installed, hook up the iPod to the USB and let it charge while you start filling up your music library to download to the iPod.

If you have music already on your PC you can use iTunes to import these songs. If you don’t import the songs already on your PC or load them into iTunes with the original CD’s they will not show up on your iPod. If you have a library in another format such as wav files, iTunes will convert them to AAC. The iPod supports the new AAC files as well as MP3.

After importing any music you want that is on your PC, load any CD’s that you might have purchased recently and haven’t had the time to upload yet. If you don’t want to load every single track from a CD, just deselect the tracks you don’t want from the list before clicking Import.

If you are like me, you are going to want at least one video or tv show to watch on the new iPod. The fastest way to do this is to use iTunes to go to the music store and download something. Videos are $1.99 each for download. My first choice was For the Birds from Pixar. You can also download your own videos using Quick Time Pro 7 which can be downloaded for $30 if you don’t already have it.

Once you finish updating iTunes with all the content you want downloaded to your iPod, you need to tell iTunes to update the iPod by clicking File, then update. Or you can disconnect the iPod from the USB and reconnect and the iPod will synch automatically.

Playing music and videos
To play music through the headphones, pop the earbuds in your ears and press any button on the click wheel to start up the iPod. There is no button that say “ON” or “Power”. (To shut the unit off, press and hold the Play/Pause button on the bottom of the click wheel.) The click wheel and menu are really easy to figure out but if you become frustrated the software CD also contains a user manual for the iPod. The music sounded as good as I expected – if not better.

I wanted to check out the video content first so I picked Videos from the menu and found the Pixar short that I had downloaded from iTunes. Wow!! I was impressed. For the small 2.5” screen the picture is amazing. I was more impressed after downloading a couple of music videos and a few episodes of the TV show Nightstalker from iTunes. (You can download a few selected ABC shows the day after they air on TV at iTunes). The video screen is really very easy to watch and the detail is truly surprising.

What else does it do?
So, it sounds great and the video is great – what else can it do? Lots. You can download photos from your PC, view slideshows with music. You can even use the iPod for presentations by using an AV connector to hook the iPod up to a projector. How cool is that? You can set it to use as a watch – it has 3 different clocks you can set – for different time zones if you wish. You can use it as an alarm clock. You can set it to play you to sleep as it has presets sleep timers of 120, 90, 60, 30, or 15 minutes. You can use it as a contacts manager, calendar, and a place to keep notes and lists. It has a built in stopwatch. You can even play games on it – Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute and Solitaire. You can also rate your songs on a scale of 1 to 5 stars from either the iTunes or directly on your iPod and they will synch when you update the iPod. This way, you can create a Smart playlist of your favorites – it will play all your 4 and 5 star rated songs. It really is an amazing little multi-tasker.

Can you listen to it out loud?
You can play your iPod through speakers – which I did. I have hooked it up to my stereo at home and can listen throughout my house as I am doing housework etc without wearing the earbuds or carrying the iPod around with me. You can also buy portable and stand alone speakers specifically designed for use with the iPod. You can buy FM transmitters to listen to the iPod through your car stereo while driving. There is even a mini battery operated speaker available that plugs into the headset jack on the iPod so you can listen out loud no matter where you are.

Capacity
You can store 15,000 songs, 20,000 photos or 150 hours of video. That is a lot of storage! I have a feeling that I won't be complaining about running out of room. I am one of those people who want everything with me on my player. If I have to pick and choose songs, I always want something that isn't on the player. This is probably all psychological, but with 60GB capacity, I don't have to fret over which songs to keep and which to leave off. I listen to what I want, when I want. Nice!

Battery Life
The 60GB has an advertised battery life of 20 hours between charges. This can be misleading because the more you are playing with the menus and the backlight is lit up, the faster the drain on the battery power. Videos drain the battery quickly – you’ll need to recharge after about 2 hours of videos. Games will also sap the battery more quickly. For straight music listening though, the battery life is about what is advertised. If you are someone who turns it on, sets the music and has disabled the backlight then you will probably get your full 20 hours. However, if you are going to do multiple things with it throughout the day in what I classify as “normal” use, it should last you all day so you can recharge at night. I have a car charger for mine that keeps it charged when I am listening to it in my car which pretty much guarantees me that iPod will be ready for me whenever I am in the mood to listen. A good tip to save battery life is to use the hold switch on the top of the iPod when not in use. This works pretty much the same way a key lock does with a cell phone – it prevents you from accidentally enabling it or starting it up while in your purse or pocket and not in use.

My minor irritations with the iPod
The iPod has a clear polycarbonate layer on the top of the unit which scratches easily. You will want to make sure that you take precautions to prevent scratches that will detract from the video watching pleasure. The Invisible Shield is a good option (www.theinvisibleshield.com) but there are a lot of cases on the market as well. Don’t just rely on the soft cover that comes with the iPod.

My iPod is Black – I picked Black because I read that the Black one is better for watching videos on. Since I don’t have a white one, I can’t really tell you if this is really the case or not but the earbuds that come with it are White. Why White earbuds should bother me is a mystery – it doesn’t affect the performance in any way. I just like stuff to match and these don’t so it irritates me. Most of the accessories on the market are also White so this is something that I need to get over.

You can’t delete a song directly from your iPod. You have to either delete it from your iTunes library or set the iPod for manual updating and update it while connected to your PC. This means if I am out and about and listening to a song that I really can’t stand, I can’t just delete it then and there. I have to remember what the song is and wait until I get home to remove it from the iPod.

The iPod does not come with a plug in charger. The only option for charging right out of the box is the USB cable. You can buy the plug to charge it for about $34 from any store that carries iPod accessories.

Final thoughts
I am thrilled with the purchase and glad that I finally let the Pod people get me. The iPod is top notch and a fabulous portable entertainment device. I am still amazed by how much it does. I have a 2 hour commute to work each way and listen to a lot of audiobooks. I have never enjoyed my commute more! It beats listening to the repetitive news or music stations. I walk in the evening when I get home from work and the music on the iPod keeps me motivated – even as the weather here in NH is getting colder and we got our first snowfall on Thanksgiving day.

I finally got to purchase some of the cool accessories I wanted such as the TuneDock by Belkin for the car – which I highly recommend for folks listening in their cars. It keeps the iPod stationary and safe from scratches it could get floating around free on the passenger seat.

The few things that bother me are livable and easily enough dealt with and don’t take away any of the pleasure of use. I would and do recommend the iPod to anyone that asks me about it and how I like it so far. I think it is worth the investment.