Apple iPod Video 5th Generation White (30 GB) MP3 Player

Okay, so I once owned an Ipod. But those times were short lived when I realized that I didn't really listen to the Ipod that much and I kept on going back to that CD player of mine. To make a long story short, I sold that Ipod for 200 dollars, thinking that I would never go back to an Ipod again. I didn't really have a compelling reason to do so.

So then Christmas starts coming along and I start to think what the hell I could possibly want. I thought. And I thought. And I thought some more...but nothing was coming to my head. Whether this is a good thing or not that I couldn't think of anything to get for Christmas is left to be determined, but I finally said "Screw it" and wrote to Santa to bring me one of those Ipod things. I had juggled between several MP3 players but finally settled on the Ipod.

Now owning the Ipod for a solid two months, I've decided to write a review on it…and this is also my first review in like eight months, but whatever.

What's inside the box

The box is nice and small, wasting no extra space. I open the box and of course, there's the Ipod sitting staring at me right in the face. I opened the flaps and looted it for the extra stuff. I found a slip cover for the Ipod (which resembles a failed art project), USB cables, Ipod's terrible headphones, manuals, the CD, and….and no battery charger! Thanks Apple! I love having to charge my Ipod through my computer; it's the best way to do it.

I must admit that Apple did bundle everything neatly even if they didn't supply the separate charger. And being the good brother I am, I decided that instead of throwing away the Ipod buds, I just gave them to my sister instead.

The actual Ipod itself

The Ipod has always been a thing of beauty and unsurprisingly the 5G Ipod looks aesthetically pleasing to the eye. However, this Ipod is a little different from the other Ipods. First off, a color screen is here which is fantastic. I love viewing pictures and album art whenever I'm playing tunes. Plus the screen is significantly bigger than other Ipod screens; this one is 2.5 inches diagonal. Pretty spiffy.

Second, the scroll wheel is somewhat smaller than the other Ipods. I don't really mind the change but I believe that Apple just made the wheel smaller to emphasize the screen size. Whatever. Anyway, the wheel is still touch sensitive for turning the wheel up and down and the buttons underneath the wheel are accessed by physically pushing on the wheel. The scroll wheel is by far the easiest and most simplistic thing for any MP3 player. It reduces excess leaving the controls to one thing.

Third, the Ipod is actually skinner and lighter than its previous brethrens. This is quite surprising due the size of the screen and the extra crap that Apple decided to pack in. For example, this model comes with 30 gigs, 10 more than the 4G Ipod. Combined with the bigger, 65K color screen, it's amazing how they shoved it all into a smaller package. It's light and small and easily placed into a pocket. The interface on the Ipod is also unsurpassed as well. Very simplistic and easy to get into, you'll be browsing and playing songs in no time.

The music

Ipods have always been on the music front and the 5G Ipod is still very impressive in the sound department. I encode most of my songs with the Apple Lossless file format, which rips the songs at an extremely high bit rate (the higher the bit rate, the better), giving a much better sound quality as opposed to, say, a typical 128 KPS (KiloBytes Per Second) MP3 file format (the format Apple uses by default). While the sound quality is amazing with Apple Lossless, it takes up an enormous amount of space. Several of my songs are 50 MB + a piece. To give you an idea, I only have 757 songs on my Ipod, but this takes up 19.60 gigabytes on my hardrive. Ouch! Still, I can't settle for poor sound quality, especially if I'm still making comparisons with my CD player.

Anyway, music sounds pretty amazing for the Ipod, much better than any other MP3 player I've heard. Bass isn't that heavy but more pronounced, which is something I have to live with, but whatever. The fidelity is good and most of the songs don't produce any distortion (except for rap songs). Plus, I love the album art feature. I just wished that Itunes would download the album art automatically with the CD

Naturally, you'll need a decent pair of headphones to get the most out of the Ipod. I love my Bose Triports, but for practicality's sake I use Shure's E2C ear buds. These $100 dollar buds are amazingly compact and sound great with the Ipod. No Triports, but decent enough for buds, and I can actually put the damn things in my pocket.

In short, the Apple Ipod is probably the best sounding MP3 player out there. With high bit rate songs and a good set of headphones, you'll almost trick yourself in thinking you're listing to a CD player…almost. The quality is not quite there yet.

Videos?

Yes, the 5G Ipod can play videos (that is why it is commonly referred to as "The Video Ipod). Putting videos on the Ipod is harder than it should be, considering that the Ipod will only take MPEG 4 files. If you have any Quicktime files, you can just add the files to the Itunes library and covert them to MPEG 4. With any other file you'll have to get converting software. You can buy one or download a free one, but it's still inconvenient.

Anyway, the video on the Ipod isn't half that bad. It's surprisingly clear with great audio to match up with it, but then again you're viewing it on a puny 2.5 inch screen. If you have any wide screen videos, it will only be smaller. Also, it's hard viewing the videos if you don't have the back light on.

Everything is controlled with the click wheel, so videos are a breeze to file and view. But I think that the video portion of the Ipod if more of a novelty than a centerpiece. I would suggest that if you're looking for a serious video player that you should look elsewhere. Personally, I believe that I'm going to stick with my PSP for watching movies. However, the Ipod does have a ton of space for the videos.

Itunes

Love it or hate it, Itunes is the only way to get from your Ipod to your computer. Quite personally, Itunes was really the deciding point in what MP3 player I wanted. I love Itunes. It's simple to use, looks great, and avoids clutter. There's search buttons and album art as well to enhance the listening.

I also bought a few songs off of Itunes to see what it was like. First off, Itunes has an enormous amount of songs so you should be able to find what you're looking for. I downloaded Whatever and Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five and Itunes hastily ripped it to my hardrive. My only complaint is that the quality of the songs are rather low; Itunes uses 128 KPS quality which may sound alright to others but not for audiophiles like me. Still, it's convenient and pretty quick at the same time.

The Not So Good Things

One thing that has always been a hindrance of the Ipod is the battery. Apple touts that the Ipod can squeeze out 14 hours of battery life, but these tests are inaccurate. One, the test Ipod was tested in an environment probably without any movement at all. Two, it was tested with extremely low bit rate songs. Try like 64 KPS, which is insanely low both in size and sound quality. The advantage, however, is that it takes less battery life to access and play these songs. So basically if you go above 64 KPS for file format, you probably won't get to that glorified 14 hour mark.

Which is just plain bad news for me. With some of my songs having over 1000 KPS, the mini hard drive inside the Ipod that accesses and plays the songs has to work harder to play these large file songs, thus decreasing my battery life in the process. While I haven't done an unofficial official test, I don't believe my Ipod can last longer than 9 hours on full charge.

Video battery life is also mediocre. I haven't done tests on video battery life but from what I hear from others, the video playback is about 2 hours or so. Forget that.

Besides the battery life, the Ipod has always been prone to scratching and this version is no different. Invest in a case or something of the sort or be prepared to have your Ipod caked with scratches. I don't care how careful you try to be; all it takes is one spec of dust to be moved in between two surfaces and BAM! Big old scratch on that color display of yours.

Plus, it's an Ipod. As much as I enjoy owning one, everyone else owns one too. I'm sure this doesn't bother most, but I can't help but feel like a conformist whenever I walk around school listening to it. Oh well, this is probably something that I feel.

The Verdict

Besides the mediocre battery life, Ipod has really hit one out of the park again with the 5G Ipod. It's smaller in size, bigger in hardrive, has video playback, and a color screen. Plus, the audio sounds great as always. So if you're looking to invest in an MP3 player, consider the Ipod 5G. But if you're looking for the best portable video player, I'd suggest looking elsewhere; the battery for the video playback is just too low.