Apple iPod 60 GB

...nice - it's designed by Apple after all. And it's small enough to carry with me but big enough that I won't worry about leaving it anywhere. That it can play video wasn't a factor in my decision making.

I've owned it for over 2 months now and have used it on more than a few occasions. What follows are my experiences with it.

You all know it looks stunning. In shiny black with the chrome back it oozes style. The mix of ...
...change in this regard as Apple start offering advance access to popular TV shows through iTunes. I imagine people would happily pay £5 for early access to episodes from the next season of "24" for example - heck I could even be tempted. While the screen is bigger than previous versions it's still tiny - especially when compared to something like the PSP.

For playing music though, the iPod Video is outstanding. Sound quality ... more

When I used to have a paper-round, an essential piece of kit was my trusty walkman. He kept me company on the 7 mile bike-ride that I did at 5:30 every morning for over 2 years. As I grew older and my working habits changed we drifted apart… I saw him less and less until we inevitably went our separate ways.

For more than 10 years my life went along fine without the need to carry music with me wherever I went. Technologies came and went - portable CDplayers, Mini-Disc players and the first MP3 players. I had CDs and the radio in the car. I didn't need music anywhere else and I didn't want to be just another obnoxious MP3-playing moron who's music sounds, to the rest of the world, like a fight in a bacofoil factory. So I resisted the temptation to buy anything.

Resisted, that is, until a few months ago. I am now the owner of a shiny, black 60Gb iPod Video.

Why this sudden change of heart after all this time? I put it down to my working habits again. I tend to travel a reasonable amount, less in the car and more by other means. I like to try and get some work done during this time but find the noise can be distracting - it's far easier for me to concentrate if I have some music on in the background. Add to that the fact that my CD-changer in the car had broken and my need for portable music had returned.

So why the iPod? If truth be told, it was a lazy option. It is something like the 3rd generation of the device so I figured that most of the problems should have been addressed by now. It also has a respectable amount of storage - enough to store my entire music collection (at the moment), so it removes the hassle of choosing what to add and what to leave. It looks nice - it's designed by Apple after all. And it's small enough to carry with me but big enough that I won't worry about leaving it anywhere. That it can play video wasn't a factor in my decision making.

I've owned it for over 2 months now and have used it on more than a few occasions. What follows are my experiences with it.

You all know it looks stunning. In shiny black with the chrome back it oozes style. The mix of a flat front and rounded corners makes it look nicer than the earlier models. It's about the same size as the original, maybe a little thinner thanks to the flat front. It still fits snugly into the palm of your hand, if anything it's a better size than the smaller nanos as the ergonomics just fit better. It's slightly too heavy for a shirt pocket - it will cause noticeable "sag" but you can easily carry it in the inside pocket of a suit jacket without any unsightly bulges.

If only it was made of tougher stuff. Within a week of ownership, my iPod had picked up some sizeable scars on it's shiny plastic face. These could only have happened because a minute grain of dirt got stuck in the protective casing, which is such a snug fit that the pressure of inserting & removing the iPod must have cause it to scratch. That said, it's pretty robust - I've already dropped it once (from about 4 feet high onto a laminate wooden floor) and it survived. The chrome back is more robust but so highly polished that it picks up fingerprints from 20 yards - which means that every time LegendaryMrsDude sees it, she starts polishing it!

The Colour screen dominates the front of the device - easily bigger than the original iPods and far easier to read as well. The click wheel is black as well, with menu / play / forward / back controls embedded at the cardinal points of the compass and the middle acting as a selection button.

It's with the click-wheel that I have my biggest issue. It may be unfamiliarity or it could be fat fingers, but I have real problems with the scroll-wheel. I find it way too sensitive at times - the selected item skips from one to the next at the slightest touch. The fact that the select button is in the middle has lead to me "nudging" the scroll wheel just as I'm about to select a menu choice. This usually sees me shuffling my songs for the umpteenth time, typically half way through one of my favourite tunes.

The menu system itself is reasonably easy to navigate - scroll the click wheel round to move up/down the list and hit the select button to choose your option. The "menu" button takes you back up a level. The various settings can be changed easily enough and they are all self explanatory - I've not read the instructions yet although it wouldn't take long, you get a flimsy booklet. There are a few games included, solitaire, parachutes, brick and Music Quiz. Music quiz is the only one worth playing in my view - it takes a random selection of your tunes and gives you a list of options to guess from while it plays a snippet. Very similar to the Lionel Blair classic "Name That Tune", the quicker you get it, the more points you score. It's a good way to learn how much cr@p there is in your music collection!

There's a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the device, along with a "hold" button which is effectively a key-lock - an incredibly handy thing given the sensitivity of the clickwheel! My gripe here is that I don't think the hold button is always 100% effective. Maybe I'm not pushing it all the way across but there have been more than a few occasions when I've dug it out of my pocket to find it 100 songs further into my playlist and the battery correspondingly lower.

At the bottom of the device is the iPod docking port, a rather complex affair that the supplied (white) USB cable plugs in to. This serves to both charge the internal battery (which will last anywhere between 2 - 20 hours depending on whether you're watching videos or just listening to music) and transfer music, video and general files across to the device. The supplied cable is typically Apple, white enough that it gets grubby in no time and short enough that you have to hope your USB ports aren't just on the back of your PC - a USB hub or extension cable will be needed if your PC is under a desk!

As well as the link cable, the iPod is supplied with the ubiquitous "earbud" headphones. Also in white. Not only do they advertise the fact that you've got an iPod to would-be muggers, I also found them to be relatively poor and have replaced them with my Sennheiser Noise cancelling 'phones (reviewed elsewhere on Ciao) - they are far better when travelling.

Of course it comes with a CD as well, a good job too as you can't use your iPod without iTunes. I tried using Windows Media Player and it spent a whole day copying music over to the device but the iPod stoutly refused to acknowledge the existence of the music. So I had to delete it all and repeat the whole process though iTunes. As this isn't a review of the software I won't go into the details of iTunes. Which is a good thing as the jury is still out on that one. It does appear to be the only place you can buy videos from that will play on your iPod but I have to admit that the thought of having to look at the screen while listening to music doesn't appeal to me. I was disappointed that it didn't come with sample video - preferably of Rachel Stevens - so that I could show it to my mates. But I certainly won't be going and forking out the requisite £2 for 3 minutes of footage! There is a growing range of software that will do video conversion so that stuff can play on your iPod Video but if you're honest, would you ever really bother? Things may change in this regard as Apple start offering advance access to popular TV shows through iTunes. I imagine people would happily pay £5 for early access to episodes from the next season of "24" for example - heck I could even be tempted. While the screen is bigger than previous versions it's still tiny - especially when compared to something like the PSP.

For playing music though, the iPod Video is outstanding. Sound quality is as good as the rate at which you've encoded your music. Lower bit-rates will produce obvious distortion but then they would on any player. Higher bitrates come through wonderfully. There is a range if equalisation settings to suit your personal tastes e.g. Rock, Vocal, Dance etc. but I prefer to leave things unequalised as it does a great job of reproducing the original.

The volume level is OK, on quiet MP3s you may struggle a bit but any louder and you could easily deafen yourself. It would be nice if someone invented an MP3 player that sensed the volume of the files and adjusted the output to maintain a set level… maybe in the next version. This is one of the reasons why I wear the noise cancelling headphones - it allows you to play the music at a much lower volume so there's less chance of damaging your ears.

Sorting through your music is easy. Provided all your meta-tags are in place you can browse by genre or artist. Support for pre-defined playlists is also good and you can add tunes to a dynamic playlist as you go. I've never actually used a playlist though, preferring to shuffle the whole library and hear a random selection.

And that's about your lot. I paid $399 for it in the US which, given the exchange rate at the time worked out to be slightly over £200. In the UK it retails for closer to £300 and is likely to remain there until at least well into next year.

Is it good value for money? Probably not. You can get similar devices for slightly less. I consider it to be a bit of a luxury item, you pay a premium for the brand, the design and the fact that it can play video. But there are benefits. The 60Gb storage is unparalleled at the moment, despite the fact that you loose approximately 5Gb to the formatting gremlins - leaving around 55Gb as useable space. The battery life, while not brilliant, is acceptable it will certainly last 8 - 10 hours under normal circumstances. It's small enough and stylish enough to carry with you every day but invest in a protective case or it will be scratched, battered and bruised before you know it. Also make sure you put the keylock properly on or your battery will be flat before you know it. You will probably also need to invest in a decent set of headphones and either a docking station or a mains charger - neither of which come supplied. So the iPod is even more expensive that first appearances. All things considered, I can only really award it 4 stars. 

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