Review on the latest incarnation of iPod - The iPod video or The Fifth Generation of iPods.
I’ve always been fascinated by mp3 players since they were launched. My first mp3 player was three years ago, a 256 MB memory stick type of mp3 player which I bought for around 200 euros which is close to the price of a 2GB iPod Nano these days. It had very good sound quality and could hold a 50 songs. It was a wonder those days. Slowly the iPods started becoming popular and affordable which took the market by storm. I first iPod I used (not owned) was a iPod mini (4GB). I did not like the colors and it looked like a girl’s thing. I was not impressed with it. So I stayed away from iPods for a long time and was investigating players from iRiver and Creative.
Sometime late last year Apple launched the iPod Nano, and man I was impressed with it. I just loved the black version of the Nano. It was thin, had a high resolution color screen and could store 4GB of stuff. I felt finally Steve Jobs made my dream mp3 player and I decided to buy it. A couple of my colleagues bought the Nano and were flashing it which made me even more desperate to buy it. I work in London where every other guy has an iPod these days. I finally made up my mind to buy the beauty ..I started hearing complaints about the Nano. There were infact people who dragged Apple to court as their Nano screens cracked and got scratched easily. With the Nano 4GB close to 200 £ in the UK, which was considerable money.... I did not want to buy something fragile however sexy it looked.
A few weeks later Apple unleashed its next beauty the iPod video, looking at it on the Apple website I realized this is what I wanted. My favourite black color and upto 60 GB storage space and ofcourse I knew it was not as delicate as the Nano. It stores/displays photos and wooow it plays videos too!!! I waited to see it in action knowing some gadget freak in my office would surely flash it around. And finally one of my colleagues managed to get it for a christmas present. Lucky guy!!
I played it. . it was the best quality sound I ever heard on such a gadget. I even saw a coulple of music videos, they look nice. But however I was not convinced about its video capabilities. I did not bother as I was not looking for a video player in it. So finally the auspicious day came, when I finally bought the 30GB model as it was slimmer and better than the 60GB one. I paid 219 £, around 20£ more than the web price on Amazon. I usually buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, but iPod being special I bought it from a local store even if it meant spending 20 £ more. FYI the 60GB selles for 299£ in the shops.
The box and the packaging were inline with Apple standards of design and perfection. Inside the box were the iPod, the iTunes CD, the charging/data tranfer cable, head phones and a carrying case. I started cribbing now. How can someone like Apple package white ear buds and white cables for a black ipod?? Well that was something I knew earlier... so no surprises. The documentation available in the box is minimum. I had no issues setting it up and getting it to work. But I feel people who are not used to working with software/computers everyday will find it a bit tough.
iTunes is a nice piece of software, its cool and easy to use. I quickly loaded a bunch of songs into it and I was all set. I had never used the Apple supplied ear buds for iPod. My friend had one of the expensive sony ones which sit in the ear correctly. I was disappointed with the white ear phones that come with the ipod. The sound quality is good, but they tend to fall of the ear easily and unless they sit real tight they don’t give a good effect. Anyways I bought a new pair of sony in-ear headphones which sound really really good.
I finally loaded all my songs and was ready to hit the London tubes with my brand new iPod. I had charged my ipod fully. I played it for around 4 hrs the first day and the battery drained fully !!! Apple claims 14 hrs play time. I thought since it was a new battery, I need to complete a few charge cycles before the battery gives me full performance. However even after a week, charging everyday I got a battery life of close to 5 hrs max. This is no where near the 14 hrs promised by Apple :(
With this kind of a battery life, the mains charger should come along with the iPod. Its available as an accessory for 20 £. This means I have to leave my laptop switched on every night to re-charge it for 4 hours every night. Further the white case got so dirty that finally I threw it out and bought a box of ipod socks for another 20 £. There are better leather cases available for the same price, but they permanently hide the beauty of your iPod.
Another key thing is this gadget is extremely vulnerable to scratches. You need to take real good care to keep it scratch free. However the other good things are:
Its very easy to use once setup properly.
You view your photos as a slide show with music playing in the background.
You can create playlists on the go.
Its very slim/light weight for a 30GB mp3 player.
Extras like games, clock, alarm, stop clock (I never found these of any value)
The video is something I’ve not investigated much. However I did manage to convert a few Hindi music videos to mp4 format and got them on to the iPod. It was not at all bad. However you need to buy the software for encoding your streams to MP4 format from DVDs or other formats. But the problem with video is, your battery will last for a little more than an hour!!! If you planning to watch videos on this ..forget it.
I love my iPod but still there are areas which need improvement. Finally to summarize, Apple could make the iPod video even better by:
Not advertising that it lasts for 14 hrs and disappointing customers later. May be even with zero volume and back light turned off completely it wouldn’t survive that long.
Improving the battery life.
Providing a mains charger along with the Ipod.
Better head phones please
Apple ...are you listening ..???
Also coming shortly is the review on various iPod accessories I bought ..