Apple iPod Video 5th Generation White (60 GB) MP3 Player

Ok, I know a lot about iPods. I am one of those lame people that obsess over them. After watching the live webcast that announced the 5G iPod, I called the Apple Store by my house at least 20 times. When they finally arrived, I sped like a rocket through town and picked mine up. There were was only ONE left... Without futher ado, here is what I have discovered:

First off is scratching. This thing is exteremly scratch prone. I have babied "my precious" ever since the first second it was removed from its crappy plastic wrapper. Since there are NO CASES available for this product as of 11/1/2005, you must touch it with your hands. Even if your hands are perfectly clean you must touch the iPod to use/charge/update it. If you touch it, it WILL immediately get dirty. You then must clean if you want it to look nice. Sooo, I grab a soft paper towl, fold it into fourths, and then spray some windex one one corner. I am wiping off the screen when part of the "dry" section of the paper towel rubs across the screen, and guess what? SWIRL MARKS!!! Awesome! Now in the sunlight you can see the swirls. This angeres me greatly. They put this SUPER DUPER soft platic layer over the iPod. My 4G was prone to scratch, but nothing like this 5G. Thank God I got White and not Black... I hear black is even worse. If you don't believe me go to your Apple Store and see for yourself. Since everyone is so woried about it scratching, the floor models at the Apple Stores are usually totally jacked up.

On to Video Play Back... Anyone who says that it is hard to convert videos is a moron. If you are using a mac, just use iMovie. If you have a PC like myself goto: www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/. It is free and works great. Choose MPEG4, not H.264 as your converted file format. I have had a lot of problems with H.264. I was a fool and spent $30 on Quicktime Pro. It took me 11 hours to convert one movie. And then the audio didn't work! I used the free program listed above, and SHAZAAM! It worked correctly, and only took 2 hours. The screen looks great, easy to read, fluid motion, yada yada yada.

Audio Quality: I think that the iPod is a top-notch audio player. I can hear small details that I just can't hear on my home speakers or in my car, and they are both expensive systems. There is just something about listening to music through headphones that is different then speakers. There is no more "Hard Drive" spin up noise that plagued the previous 40gb 4g Photos (that I had before this one). One cool thing about the 5G is that they definately improved the bass. My earbuds would crackle at time on my 4G, but Apple must have worked on their EQ. It sounds really good!

Games: Same old crap. But with a better screen. It makes the games a bit better, but its not that different.

Battery Life: I don't know if it is just my iPod but my batters meter just goes all over the board and is innacurate. The iPod's battery meter shows you how much life is left based on the current usage which makes sense, but it is just extremely innacurate. I have had times where I was just listening to music for hours, and the battery meter was totally gone, so I decided to totally drain my battery by watching a movie so I could get a nice full charge. I then watched a 30 minute video which should have trained 25% of my battery to totally drain it out. I then completed the video, switched back over to music, and my batterly life was amazingly sitting at about 30%! So it is kind of annoying because you don't ever REALLY know how much battery is left. But in real life testing, the advertised 20hrs of audio and 2hrs of video seem about right.

iTunes: Video's download fast and move over to the iPod easily. They did a good job. It is what you would expect from Apple.

Connecting/accesories: No more fire wire accessories, ore accesories that require those extra pins by the earphone jack. Oh well. Not a big deal for me. My Alpine dock for my car still works with it, so I am not complaining. I just think it is funny that Apple dropped fire wire since they were the ones that were raving on and on about how AWESOME it was for so many years...

Pictures: They look better now, but now a whole lot better. I do like how the picture grid is bigger so you can see more thumbnails at any given time.


General Notes: For me it is annoying that the center button on the click wheel is not raised up any more. It sits totally flush now which makes it hard to just feel for the button. I got used to using my 4G without looking at because I could feel the buttons, on this one I cant. I am forced to find the center button every time. In other news... The alarm clock is totally laughable. They put this tiny little crappy speaker that barely make any noise at all inside the new iPod. I just tested it, and I could BARELY EVEN HEAR IT. It was just as loud as the faint "Click" sound you hear when you are scrolling though songs... Totally lame.

Value: All of the benefits of the 4G: plus video, its smaller, better battery life better sound, AND IT IS THE SAME EXACT PRICE. Even if you never use it for video OPTION, it is a great value.

In closing...I LOVE THE WAY it looks and feels, it plays movies great and music is awesome. It is my new friend when I have to get on a airplane. Everyone who sees it is jealous of me, which is cool and makes me feel good inside.