Apple iPod 30 GB

Apple iPod Video 30GB - White

iPod - Probably the world's best known MP3 player, designed and marketed by Apple in California.

I have a white iPod Video 30GB purchased for £184.99 in Jersey. I had the advantage of purchasing the product tax free and at a slightly further reduced price, as this version of the iPod would usually retail for between £220-£250 in the U.K., dependent upon were you buy from. It looks like it ...
...from the Apple store.

The iPod video 30 GB holds up to 7,500 songs, which would constitute circa 700 CD albums … quite a lot!! The screen is full colour and will normally display the album cover of the selected album you are playing.

The size of the product is very sleek and slim line, measuring 10.4 x 6.1 x 1.1cm, and fitting snugly into any pocket.

The product also comes in a 60GB format, which will ... more

Apple iPod Video 30GB - White

iPod - Probably the world's best known MP3 player, designed and marketed by Apple in California.

I have a white iPod Video 30GB purchased for £184.99 in Jersey. I had the advantage of purchasing the product tax free and at a slightly further reduced price, as this version of the iPod would usually retail for between £220-£250 in the U.K., dependent upon were you buy from. It looks like it would be cheaper to purchase over the Internet or direct from the Apple store.

The iPod video 30 GB holds up to 7,500 songs, which would constitute circa 700 CD albums … quite a lot!! The screen is full colour and will normally display the album cover of the selected album you are playing.

The size of the product is very sleek and slim line, measuring 10.4 x 6.1 x 1.1cm, and fitting snugly into any pocket.

The product also comes in a 60GB format, which will hold up to 15,000 songs.

The battery life of the iPods is roughly 20 hours, but it takes a few charges to get anywhere near this life time out of the battery, like anyone with a mobile phone will know. I haven't had anywhere near this length of charge held in the battery yet, but then I have only owned the iPod for 6 weeks, so I will reserve judgement just yet.

The iPod charges and synchornises via a USB cable supplied with the purchase, but beware that the charging process may only occur when up-dating the iPod and not necessarily if plugging into the computer, as USB ports are not designed to provide charge and will not do so quickly. Therefore, you will need to go to the added expense of buying a specifc mains iPod charger, which I have not yet done myself.

Other cheaper options, with less memory are the iPod Nano, which comes as either 2GB or 4GB of memory, holding up to a maximum of 1,000 songs, or alternatively the iPod shuffle, with either 512mb or 1GB of memory, which will only hold a couple of hundred songs maximum. The latter will cost you anything from between £60-£75, with the former costing more in the region of £135-£145.

What do you need to own an iPod video 30GB or 60GB?

1) £200 + of available capital would be a start, but be expected to pay out more money for additional accessories, such as a mains charger.
2) A PC would be handy, as the only way to download your CDs onto the iPod is by first uploading them all to your PC. However, as you are reading this on the Internet, a PC is taken as a given.
3) It is imperative that your PC has plenty of hard drive space … if you are looking to use the full memory of your iPod, then you will need at least 27GB of available space for the 30GB iPod and circa 56GB for the 60GB iPod. I have an old PC, which only has 7GB total capacity on the hard drive, so I purchased an 80GB external hard drive for £75, but this has provided me with extra benefits, as I can take my personal work with me wherever I go and plug the external hard drive into any desk top PC or laptop.
4) A liking for music and/or music videos, and photos.
5) Patience!

How to get started once purchased?

- The iPod does not come with many instructions, which I always find a little unnerving in one sense, but quite encouraging in another. Unnerving, because it doesn't provide you with a lot of handy tips and hints should something go wrong, but encouraging in the sense that it shouldn't be too complex to operate and understand. Indeed, the latter is very true, but I did initially get caught in the trap of up-dating the iPod on the Internet when registering it with Apple. As with Windows, your PC will advise you when there are live up-dates or "patches" available for you to download - free of charge - off the Internet. However, what I found was that this caused problems with my iPod i.e. little bugs that required fixing and would require the assistance of a paid expert to offer advice and tips. Therefore, I re-set the factory settings, which is explained with the purchase manual, and made the decision not to download any up-dates to my iPod….. After all, it was designed to play music and videos, and does this perfectly well, so what could I possibly need to up-date to it from the Internet? I am very sceptical about the advantages this could have and have only experienced problems personally, but it's up to you of course, which route you decide to take post purchase.
- The ipod comes complete with CD software that requires loading into your PC, along with a copy of iTunes, the media player required to upload music to your PC before download to your iPod, but this can all be downloaded without charge from the iTunes Internet site www.apple.com/itunes and ensures you have the most up to date product.

Uploading time can vary dependent upon the speed of your CD / DVD driver on your PC / laptop, but the higher the speed i.e. 14 x, then the quicker the upload time. Typically, at the mentioned speed, a CD of 60 minutes duration will upload into iTunes in 4-5 minutes, allowing you to upload a number of CD albums in a relatively short space of time. Unfortunately, as my PC is 7 years old, it can take over 20 minutes to upload one album, so I have resorted to utilisng my work laptop, which has ensured I can upload in 4-5 minutes. This allowed me to completely upload my whole library of circa 300 CD albums in 3-days, whilst I was off work ill. I just had the issue of transferring all the music from my laptop hard drive to my personal external hard drive, which took a little doing and meant I had to re-organise iTunes a little to ensure the song reference pointed to the correct driver … what a head ache !! I couldn't find a way to ensure that songs uploaded onto iTunes automatically saved on my external hard drive, despite iTunes being saved on the external hard drive itself … oh the joy of technology !!

ITunes automatically recognises most CDs loaded into the computers CD / DVD ROM driver and automatically brings up the details of the CD, from album and artist title, to track names, genre and duration of songs…. Brilliant! This is allows you to manage your music library and you can edit names and titles to your hearts content ~ should you need to.

ITunes also connects to an on-line music store allowing you to search and purchase music throughout a very extensive on-line music library. In order to do this, you must first register your details and payment method on-line with Apple, providing a unique username and password to access your account and make purchases.

The iPod, when turned on, provides an initial menu that you can scroll down; Music, Photos, Videos, Extras, Settings, Shuffle Songs, Now Playing. Each of the menu choices will provide you with a number of sub-menus allowing you to find information by ease, or providing you with further options. The "Music" option probably provides the best illustration of this, as it allows you to set up your own play lists, or look at what artists you have on your iPod, or alternatively, the names of the albums, songs, genres, composers contained on the iPod. There is also a "Podcast" album, which - as I understand - is a download from websites, typically a feature from a radio station. For example, Radio 1 provide you with Podcasts of certain features or shows that they broadcast, such as Entertainment news, which you can download, save and listen to in the form of a Podcast.

The Videos and Photos sections provide similar functions as for the Music menu.

The Extras menu function, provides a sub-menu including a clock, which automatically provides you with the date and time in California, but also allows you to set a number of new clocks … I have entered London, Madrid, Abu Dhabi and Sydney in addition to California. There are also 4 pre-set games on the iPod - Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute, and Solitaire. You can save contacts directly from Outlook express or add them manually yourself. Other features include; calendar, notes, stopwatch and a screen lock. The iPod acts as an all round organiser as well as a music / video player, and photo storage unit.

The Settings menu provides a number of different options from "shuffle" play, to "repeat" options, backlight timer, sound check, language, and memory details providing information on capacity and usage.

The iPod also comes complete with a protective material case, but many people tend to purchase something more practical from the apple store, as you are unable to access the control dial with the case that is provided and need to remove the iPod from the protective sleeve in order to do so.

There are a number of additional accessories available, from small cost products, such a different coloured case shells and protective cases (very reminiscent of mobile phone accessories), to more expensive products, such as SoundDock Music system, acting as a personal home entertainment system / stereo, as well as in-car audio accessories, which allow you to listen to your iPod through your car stereo system. The latter two products generally cost more than the iPod.

Warranty: One year

Inclusions: 1 x USB cable / 1 x set of ear pieces / 1 x iPod / 1 x CD providing install software and iTunes / 1 x Software License Agreement / 1 x Quick Start Booklet

Colours Available in: White / Black / Silver
 

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