IPOD Photo definitely ROCKS!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Portability, lots of cool features, storage capacity - 40 GB

Cons: Only available in white, sound quality can be better, no video player

The Bottom Line: 
I would recommend this product to anyone who has money to spend. Considering its features, it is well worth it. It will definitely provide hours of entertainment.

Author's Review
I've had my IPOD photo for about 2 weeks now and let me tell you, I am definitely hooked! My boyfriend bought me the IPOD photo as a Christmas gift and when it arrived it came in a package that makes you feel secure about the contents inside. Apple packaged the IPOD so that it would stay in place and even if the box was tossed around, the hard drive would not be damaged.

First thing I checked when I opened the box was the laser engraving in the back. My boyfriend got it personally engraved with his petname for me which I thought was a very nice service by Apple.

The IPOD photo came with the following:

a USB 2.0 cable
a FireWire cable
AV Cable
Photo DOCK
IPOD Power Adapter
Earbud Headphones (with 4 protectors)
installation CD (for Mac and Windows)
Carrying Case with Belt clip
Soft IPOD Pouch Bag
and a USER's Manual

The IPOD Photo comes with it's battery uncharged so I connected it to the IPOD Power Adapter with the FireWire Cable to charge it. It takes about 3 hours before the battery gets fully charged.

Since I was so excited to start using it, I disconnected it from the Power Adapter and used the USB 2.0 cable to connect it to my PC. It was a treat that the package included a USB 2.0 Cable because not all computers have FireWire ports. So I used the USB 2.0 Cable to connect it to my PC. The good thing about this is that the IPOD's battery can keep on charging while connected to the PC.

Installation of the Itunes Software was easy. However, during the Installation process, it asked for the IPOD to be formatted. I clicked yes and it just kept saying it was formatting the IPOD. Since the IPOD photo's capacity was 40GB I thought maybe it will take a long time before it gets done. So I left it connected to my PC while the Installation process said it was formatting. I came back 3 hours later and it was still formatting so I figured there must be something wrong. I did not want to disconnect the IPOD because a "Do Not Disconnect" Message was flashing on the IPOD's screen. But then I decided to just restart my PC and my IPOD. After rebooting both, I started the installation process again and voila, in 5 minutes, my IPOD was formatted and it was ready for all the songs and photos I have in my PC.

I already have a lot of songs on my Itunes in my PC and I did not have to do anything except keep the IPOD connected to my PC and Itunes automatically downloaded all my songs and playlists into the IPOD. By the way, I chose "update the IPOD automatically" when I installed Itunes. So now, everytime I have connect the IPOD to my PC and I have new downloaded songs on my Itunes, it automatically downloads it to my IPOD.

It took about 4 minutes to transfer to the IPOD all the songs I have on Itunes. I had about 280 songs in it. After transferring all the songs, I disconnected the IPOD and started using it with the headphones that came with it.

Sound Quality
The sound quality was not very impressive but I would say that it's above average, better than the RIO Cali MP3 I have. I have yet to try using my professional headphones on it. I will give an update as soon as I tried listening to it with my professional studio headphones. The IPOD has an Equalizer so you could actually tweak the how you would like your music to sound. I love the click wheel on the IPOD because it makes it easy to turn the volume up or down. All you have to do is lightly run your thumb (or any other finger at that) over it, up or down depending on how loud you want it to be.

The Click Wheel
I love the Click wheel on the IPOD. It makes it very easy to operate the IPOD using just my thumb. Just click, click, click and scroll, scroll, scroll using my thumb (running it lightly on the wheel) and I could access everything there is in my IPOD.

Games
I love the fact that the IPOD comes with 4 games. They are not the best games but they are very entertaining especially when I am bored waiting at the doctor's office. The Games it came with are:

Bricks
Music Quiz
Solitaire
Parachute

I have yet to try Music Quiz and Bricks but the Parachute game was entertaining so far.

Photo SLideshow
This is one of the best feature of the IPOD. I have downloaded Photos to it and I can view 25 of them on the IPOD's screen all at the same time. All I have to do is scroll and pick a picture, click it and it enlarges it to fill the whole screen. I also love the fact that I can use the AV cable that came with it to connect it to my TV. It was awesome to watch the slideshow on my High Definition TV with my IPOD music playing with it. It was easy to connect the IPOD photo to the TV, very user friendly and all I had to do to set the music to the slideshow was go to the Slideshow setting and picked one of my playlists as the background music.

Contacts and Calendars
My IPOD also serves as my address book now. I was able to download V-cards to it which is very convenient for me because I love to travel and now, no more carrying of address books for me. I can now let go of my PDA too since I only use my PDA for Contacts and Appointments. The IPOD has a calendar and I can just synch it with my PC so it updates it with my appoitnments. I love this feature!

It also has a clock and alarm and you could set the alarm to beep or to play your favorite music. Mine plays the song: "Good Morning Beautiful" which makes me feel good as soon as I hear it.

Other Cool Features
One of the main reason I love the IPOD photo is because I can use it to save my photos from my digital camera when I'm out hiking in the backcountry where a laptop is too heavy to carry with me. I'm an avid photographer and I take lots of pictures on my trips and I love the fact that I can transfer photos to the IPOD and not worry about running out of memory for my camera. This feature requires an extra accessory - the Belkin Media Reader.

I also love the fact that I can use the Griffin I-trip to play all my songs on my car stereo when I am driving. I have yet to buy the Itrip which is an FM transmitter that connects to the IPOD.

With all the accessories out there available for the IPOD, I would say that it is one of the funnest, coolest toys I can ever have for Christmas.

I will give more updates as soon as I buy other accessories and test them out.