Electronics

Apple 30 GB iPod with Video Playback Black (5th Generation) Includes: iTunes for Mac and Windows, earbud headphones,&USB cable.iPod - The iPod is known around the world as a premier digital audio player. Then they added a color screen and photo support. Now they complete the trilogy of multimedia features with a new 4×3 2.5″ color widescreen display, and support for video playback. You can create your own movies or purchase music videos, Pixar short films, or select TV episodes via iTunes 6. Connectivity - USB through dock connector, composite video (with A/V cable - sold separately), and audio through headphone jack or line out on the iPod Universal Dock (sold separately) Charge Time - about 4 hrs. (2 hrs. fast charge to 80% capacity) Audio Support - AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV,&AIFF Photo Support - syncs iPod-viewable photos in JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD (Mac only), and PNG formats Video Support - H.264 video - up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 fps, Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps,48 Khz, stereo audio in. m4v,. mp4 and. mov file formats / MPEG-4 video - up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 fps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in. m4v,. mp4 and. mov file formats Backlight Timer Sleep Timer 20 Equalizer Settings Shuffle Songs or Albums Date and Time Unit Dimensions - 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.43 Unit Weight - 4.8 oz. Color - Black
Customer Review: Precocious child of the Mp3 player business—but still a child
I’ve had my iPod for quite a long time now, and it works good. I like it well enough, bla bla bla, you’re not reading this review for the good things. You already know what makes it good.

So what makes it bad?

I admit I’m biased against Apple, but I ended up with an iPod anyway… first and foremost, it dislikes Windows in a subtle way—no WMA support. Thankfully, it converts WMAs to MP3s of the same bit rate automatically.

So then why is the iPod (or at least, this generation) a “precocious child”? Or rather, a retarded adult?

For one, I had a brand X MP3 player before this one. It had no video screen, was still the sort of black and white Gameboy-style screen, but it was flawless.

iPod is flawed.

1) It is sluggish. Often times it takes a long time to load a playlist, or randomize songs. When I am rapidly skipping through songs, it will freeze up while playing up to three seconds of the song I want to skip before skipping it. This really sucks.

2) It freezes easily. My Brand X mp3 player frozen on me only once, and that was because I dropped it—iPod freezes whenever it wants, though loves to do so when I’m skipping through songs at a leisurely pace.

3) The buttons’ advanced functions are barely responsive. If the iPod freezes, rather than press a tiny reset button, it makes me go through this process of flicking the Hold switch on and off, then pressing and holding the center button and the menu button for a few seconds. This almost never works the first three times. The buttons are so close together to every other button, I end up accidentally pressing the “Next” or “Previous” button along with it, and cause nothing to happen.

4) The Off button is barely responsive. Sometimes it’s a crapshoot to even have the off button work at all. The Off button is the Play button… yeah. You have to press it and hold it down for a few seconds. I have once literally pressed and held it for 30 whole seconds with no response. In quick situations or emergencies when it must be turned off, this becomes a big problem.

5) Volume control. In order to increase or decrease volume, the iPod MUST be on, and you must swirl the round part around. As opposed to my Brand X MP3 player which had the volume control on the side and could be adjusted independently from the tracking buttons. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT when you need to turn the volume UP, and you’re in the middle of scouring your albums—you have to wait 30 seconds for the albums to drift off back to the Now Playing in order to do this, or rushed ALL THE WAY BACK to the main menu and Now Playing to do this.

6) It does not come with an adaptor to plug it in to recharge. For an entire year, I believed I could only recharge this from my computer, before my mother bought a wall-jack adaptor for her iPhone. It’s compatible with the iPod as well.

7) Playlists cannot be named except in iTunes—and even then I didn’t figure it out until 6 months in, because the Right Click menu had no “rename” option—I had to figure it out by double clicking on New Playlist. Playlists also cannot have songs added or removed from them once created, except in iTunes.

Randomizations only randomize the songs ONCE—after that, the track listing is pretty much set.

9) The clicky swirly thing is a hassle to deal with when trying to select individual options, and the center button is so close to the swirly round part that when pressing it during a song (to skip ahead, or to see the album cover up close, or to give it a star rating) I often end up accidentally making the swirly thing move—so when I’m trying to rate the song, it skips ahead, and then goes right back to the Now Playing so I have to click the center button AGAIN.

Those are pretty much most, or all of the problems I’ve experienced with iPod. It’s not enough to make me stop using it, but it’s enough to make me not want to buy it again if I break or lose this one.

Oh yeah, I remember now, the “Brand X” mp3 player in question was a Creative Zen Touch 20 GB MP3 Player
Customer Review: It’s an i-pod.
There’s not much more to say, LOL. It’s an i-pod, it works, holds a lot of music.

Tags: ipod review, iPods, cheap ipod, ipods review, ipod