Well, I gave a "Very Good" 4 star rating just because I happened to find an Open Source Jukebox firmware for the iPod which plays my favourite’patent free’ OGG Vorbis files(refer https://vorbis.com for more details on OGG files - it has better compression than mp3’s) and plays mpeg videos as well, in addition to the default mp3 playback. Otherwise, I would have probably given a 3 star rating for the iPod.
The Jukebox software’s name is RockBox and is available on http://www.rockbox.org. Trust me - it rocks!. It’s free and, of course, has nothing to do with Apple. I have been using iPod with the software for over 1 month and it works perfect on my iPod Video 5G(30 GB). Rockbox has innumerable features - like configuring the display screen, play files on the iPod disc drive without requiring any software like iTunes, more flexible backlight control, plays a lot of different file types - to name a few and it is totally configurable. It also has a dual boot feature so that if you don’t like the software then you can boot the default iPod software. But, its a very rare possibility that you might want to switch back.
I could not notice much difference in the battery life either. Maybe, I did not pay much attention to the battery life but I can say for certain that it played for atleast 5 hrs continuously.
Now that I have said so much, I would like to say something about the original iPod without rockbox.:-P. I would say that the iPod Video 5G(30GB) is a good mp3(and other files) player, but its quite inflexible because of its software(iTunes) dependability. Its is quite sturdy. I did not have any problems with the earphones and found them to be of decent quality. Of course, the iPod is on a bit costlier side(I got it as a gift, though) but the quality provided is comparable. I would have given a 3 start rating, as said before, if it were not for the rockbox.