Third-Generation iPod (40Gb)
I apologise in advance as this is likely to be a fairly biased review. I love
Apple, I know I shouldn’t. I know I’m just being suckered in by advertising,
packaging, good design and ease-of-use but I can’t help it. So on to the review…
The iPod is small, I mean actually tiny, if you’ve seen one then you’ll think
it’s small but until you have held one you have no idea. It’s about the size
of a deck of cards. It feels solid and well built, a little weighty but not
heavy. I have the 40Gb version and I can’t believe that something so small
can hold so much.
The 20Gb and 40Gb versions come with a dock, in-line remote, belt clip, carry
case, earbuds (aka: headphones), firewire cable and power adapter. You can
plug the firewire cable straight into the port on the bottom of the iPod or
into the dock. While the iPod is in the dock it charges from the firewire
cable or you can plug it into the AC adapter to charge from the mains. The
dock itself also has a line-out so you can plug it into speakers to replace
your HiFi.
The iPod has five touch sensitive buttons and a touch sensetive scroll wheel.
The buttons are menu, pause/play, back, forward and select. There is also
a "hold’ switch on top to lock the buttons. The interface is simple and
intuitive, "select" moves you forward and "menu" moves
you back through the UI. While listening to music you can choose to browse
by artist, album, genre or songs and using any of these you can set the playback
to be shuffled (by album or track) or normal. You also have access to any
playlists you’ve created in iTunes as you can copy those across while the
iPod is docked. You can set the iPod to auto-update so that it reflects the
exact contents of your iTunes library but I found this unnessecarry. I connect
the iPod to my Powerbook and I don’t intend to keep 10Gb of mp3s on my laptop
all the times.
The music on the iPod is hidden so if you enable "use as firewire drive"
you won’t see the mp3s on it. There are certain programs that allow you to
get around this if you feel a need to. As well as music you can use iSynch
to copy your calender, to-do list and address book from iCal and Address Book.
You can also store and read text files on the iPod by copying them to the
notes folder. There are applications and scripts available that will copy
your email to the iPod to but of course you’ll have to wait until back at
your Mac to reply.
Finally there are a selection of games on the iPod, they’re not anything
to write home about but they’re okay for wasting a bit of time. There’s Solitaire
- the classic card game, Brick - an Arkanoid/BreakOut clone, Parachutte -
a Missile Defender clone and in the newer firmware there is also a music quiz
which I have yet to play.
Conclusion
The iPod is the best high capacity mp3 player on the market. It has decent battery
life, a clear and conscise UI and the dock is a simple and elegant way of transferring
files or connecting to external speakers.