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

So my previous gen 20GB monochrome iPod gave up the ghost a few weeks ago, and went to that big iPod graveyard in the sky. Lucky for me, I had a service plan at the local big box electronics store, and my replacement was a brand spanking new 30GB iPod Video. In black.

To say I was excited would be an understatement. You don't get given a free $400 piece of electronics every day.

The iPod Video is the fifth generation of iPod, and is the first to incorporate video playback. Following the Nano trend, it comes in two colours (err, one colour and one lack of colour), black and white.

In The Box
Apple has progressively skimped on their packaging since the previous gens of iPods- the 5G comes in a thin box with no folding mechanism like the 4G- it's not a big point, but needs to be made. Previous packaging made opening up a new iPod feel like an event. This is just electronics.

Inside you'll find the iPod (wrapped in luxurious plastic wrap), an iTunes install CD for Mac/Windows, an iPod USB connector, an iPod slip on cover, a dock adaptor, the instruction manual, the iconic white headphones, 2 sets of ear bud covers, a couple of Apple stickers, and that's it.

No Firewire. No wall adaptor.

So to sum up- you gain the neoprene iPod case, but lose Firewire and wall charger. Not a fair trade in my opinion.

The Look
iPods get all the sales for two reasons- they work really well, and they look very cool.

The 5G differs from the 4G in some important ways. The first is that the 5G has an expanded screen area. It has been stretched to the very edge of the screen, and down a bit as well. It's not huge by any means, but it is MUCH larger than the 4G.

Since the screen is larger, the click wheel has been shrunk down somewhat. On white iPods, it remains the same colour- light gray. On black iPods, it's black.

The 5G is also much thinner and lighter than its predecessor- by my estimates, at least a quarter of an inch thinner- and keep in mind that this is a 30GB version as opposed to the previous gen which only had 20GB. Fantastic packaging.

The last two changes from the 4G are also the most controversial.

The first would be the deletion of the connection port that used to exist next to the headphone jack in the 4G- it was via this connection port that accessories such as the iTrip would communicate with the iPod in order to operate. Without it, your 4G accessories are now useless. Thanks Apple!

The second is the 'Nanoization' of the 5G- previous gen iPods used a plastic front and a chrome backing. The 5G is much like the Nano in that it uses a form of lucite or something along those lines to 'coat' the plastic. This LOOKS great, but WEARS horribly. You WILL scratch your iPod during casual use. Whether you do it superficially or deeply is a matter of how careful you are. If you aren't careful, I highly recommend buying a case BEFORE even synching.

The Way It Works

First things first- synching. Remember I said there was no Firewire cable included? Well, even if you HAVE a Firewire cable, you can no longer synch using it- Firewire is solely used for charging the unit now. To move files you MUST use USB 2.0. Simply install iTunes, import your music (by whatever means you choose to), and plug the thing in. It's so painless you'll be shocked.

The menu system remains the same as previous gens- very easy to follow with consistent commands from screen to screen.

Speaking of the screen, with the backlight on, it is simply fabulous. Bright, vivid, beautiful colours, and just great. However, when the backlight is NOT on, it becomes very difficult to read- unlike the 4G which looked fine with or without the backlight.

Sound is much cleaner than the 4G. My previous iPod would continuously 'spool' up the hard drive between tracks and would make a whining noise in the headphones. The 5G does not do this. Furthermore, bass response is now controlled and not overdone. As always, the quality of the music you put in has most of the say in how it sounds, so make sure to encode using at a minimum 192kb MP3 or 128kb AAC. Another thing you will probably want to do is chuck the included headphones and get good ones- the white buds don't fit very well in my ears, and their sound response is lacking to the extreme, especially when playing things like hip hop.

Like the 4G Photo models, the 5G will automatically synch your pictures in (from iPhoto), and has a TV out option to view them on screen. Pictures look great and can be viewed along with music.

The BIG change to the 5G, is video. And on the 5G, video is a mixed bag.

First- management of videos is easy in iTunes. You can tag them as you wish, sort them as you wish, and they all go in their own directory within iTunes. This is good.

Second- playback is VERY good. Sounds are crisp, there is no ghosting, there is no blurring- it's pretty much like watching a nifty little TV. Speaking of which, with a simple stereo to RCA cable, you can output the iPod Video to a TV screen- portable video player for hotels, etc.!

As a player, the iPod Video is great.

However, it's the transfer of videos where the 5G falters. As opposed to music importation, which is as simple as 'put in your CD and click import', importing a DVD onto your iPod is a major pain in the ballsack. You will need at a MINIMUM, two 3rd party software utilities to import the DVD and convert it to iPod format, unless you feel like shelling out for Quicktime Pro, which can do it in one step, but does so VERY slowly. The 5G will NOT play WMV, plain MPEG, MOV or any other format- only MP4. Most importing schemes will take as long as the movie is- ie. if the movie is 2 hours, it will take 2 hours to convert to iPod format. NOT GOOD.

What this means is that it quickly becomes a hassle to import movies to your iPod. It's too time intensive. For shorter things, like TV episodes, it's a cinch, but with something like Scarface for example, it's a pain. One can only hope that this is rectified in future releases of iTunes.

Other Stuff
It's still very hard to find accessories. This will be fixed soon.

Battery time is a mixed bag- video playback kills the battery very quickly- you'll get about 3 hours tops out of the unit. Music playback with the backlight off will give you between 16-18 hours- quite good for what I need. Leave the backlight on all the time during playback and you'll halve the battery time, if not worse.

There is a rudimentary contacts/calendar app on the thing- pretty useless.

The same games are still on there, only in colour. Big deal.

The Sum Up
Is it better than the 4G? In some respects, such as the larger screen, the longer playback, the more compact size, and the better sound quality, yes. In other respects, such as the lack of a wall charger, the lack of Firewire support, and the horrific video conversion process, the answer is no.

Is this a REAL Video iPod? I'd say no. It seems more like a stopgap measure till they figure out where to go next with the iPod design.

Does that make the iPod Video a bad buy?

Nope.

It's still the easiest to use, it still offers good value, and it's still the player out there with the most accessories and 3rd party support. So go buy one. Or get it as a replacement. Either way, get it.