It Works But....

Author's Rating:

Pros: Allows extension of the play time of the iPod indefinitely (if you have the batteries).

Cons: Makes the iPod clunky and ungainly.

The Bottom Line: 
It's OK if you need to play your iPod without an outlet for an extended period of time.

Author's Review
I keep buying more and more peripherals for my iPod. I have a 30GB iPod and Apple states that the battery should last 8 hours on a full charge. I am rather dubious about this claim. It may last 8 hours if you don't go through different menus and skip through various songs. I noticed that the battery level would dip when I skipped through multiple songs on my playlist.

So what to do? I looked through the Apple site and saw that Belkin makes a battery pack for the iPod. Wonderful. So I ordered it and when it came, I eagerly opened the box.

You can see what it looks like at this webpage: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=T6714LL/A

I thought it would be a little tiny thing that contained a double A battery or two and connected to the iPod via the dock connector. Well, it does connect to the iPod via the dock connector, but the thing is about 2/3 the length of the iPod. The thing takes 4 AA batteries. On the side that faces the iPod, there is a small cradle that contains 2 suction cups. These are supposed to attach to the smooth silver back of the iPod and hold it in place. Then there is a tail that arises from the main body of the battery pack and attaches to the iPod dock.

On the bottom of the battery pack is an on/off switch that turns the power on and off to the iPod. On top of the battery pack is a button that checks the power remaining in the AA batteries. But to see the LED lights that show the power level remaining in the batteries, you have to slide the battery cover off (which constitutes almost one entire side of the battery pack so that when you take it off, the 4 batteries are exposed side by side by side by side). Kind of a weird place to put the LCD lights.

The battery pack is rated for something like 14 hours. I haven't tried it for that long. The longest so far is for 4 hours. I used my iPod until the LiIon battery in the iPod didn't have charge left and then plugged in the battery pack. The iPod then registers the power level remianing as a solid bar instead of the segmented bar that you usually see when you are using the built in battery.

(an update--I left the switch on the iPod battery pack on overnight without it being connected to the iPod. On means on, I guess. The next morning, I plugged it into the iPod, and I got nada, zippo. Even though the LED lights showed two lights out of the four.)
It seems to work OK. As I said, the longest I have used it is for about 4 hours so far.

When attached, the battery pack makes the iPod really bulky and ungainly.