- iPod holds 7500 songs, many hours of video, thousands of photos, and more on 30 GB of storage
- Download songs, podcasts, videos, games, and more from the iTunes Store
- Large, 2.5-inch, 320x240-pixel, color display screen is 60-percent brighter
- Search function lets you type out the name of a song with the Click Wheel for instant results
- Measures 2.4 x 4.1 x 0.43 inches (WxHxD) and weighs 4.8 ounces
Although there are no large differences between the last iPod with Video Playback (like there was with the Nano), Apple has done some improvements that should be to your liking. Apple suprised everybody by making the price $249, and greatly impacted Microsoft's future MP3 player's price point.
*Technically this is still not the iPod Video, this is still an iPod with video playback; rumors are still buzzing about a Widescreen iPod, but still no official word*
NEW:
-Longer battery life
-Games
-iTunes 7 has movies
-Search feature
-Larger capacity
-Brighter screen
GOOD:
-Great build
-Bright screen
-Battery life on video is double what it was before
-Great interface
-Innovative search
-Games are pretty fun
-Excellent design
-Minimal buttons
-Oodles of potential accessories
BAD:
-Still scratches easily
-Prone to fingerprints
-Sometimes a little sluggish (not as much as before)
-Battery isn't removable
-Still no FM tuner, line-in, or voice record
-Expensive accessories (not many in box)
-Cheap earbuds
BOTTOM LINE: Still at the top of its game months after its original release, and the minor upgrades and tweaks keep this the best MP3 player on the market.
Buy Apple 30 GB iPod AAC/MP3 Video Player Black (5.5 Generation) Now
I love this model of the iPod it's compact and very user friendly. The black and chrome model does show smudges and scratches easily, so you may want to invest in a cover or a case in addition to the black velvet sleeve that comes in the box (nice, but you can't hit the controls or see the screen through it). Other than those minor quips, all you need to do is plug it in to your PC or Apple computer and it automatically registers itself and downloads everything you have in iTunes (with an option to download your photos as well).
The screen in this updated 6 generation is brighter, and the battery life is a little longer. Playing music without the backlight activated will last over 14 hours. Watching video or having the backlight on constantly will drain the battery at just over 3 hours. Not ideal for a Transatlantic flight or one to Europe, but great for domestic air travel and short commuter rides. You have to think of this as a music player with bonus video feature, rather than as a portable DVD player (even with movies added to iTunes). If you are in the market for more video seek out the 80 GB model which is has longer battery life and more memory to hold up to 80 features instead of 30 flicks at most. The unit is slimmer, the click wheel slightly improved, and it's about $50 cheaper out of the gate than the last models.
In the box you get the white basic headphones, a USB cable (no Firewire since the iPods are not Firewire compatible), a black velvet pouch for storage, a quick sketchy instruction booklet, and a docking sleeve for when you get a docking accessory. There is no iTunes installation CD, so be sure to download the program before you plug in.
Read Best Reviews of Apple 30 GB iPod AAC/MP3 Video Player Black (5.5 Generation) Here
My wife and I had previously owned two Philips GOGear HDD6330 30GB mp3 players and had many many problems. Mostly with syncing the songs onto the devices and also some with proper playback. The interface was also not as nice nor responsive as the iPod. So we returned the Philips players and got an 80GB and 30GB iPod. Neither has let us down once. They sound great, the battery lasts for days (4-6 hours a day use). itunes is very easy to use and seems to almost know what you need to do before you do. podcasts are neat and free, you can download tons of videos from google video, you can put pictures on it, no problems finding accessories. It is really just night and day vs. the current windows based offerings. On the 80GB iPod we have about 6,500 songs, 50 videos, 200 photos, and all of our outlook contacts and it is only about half full. Not to mention the games that come with it. If you don't mind spending a little more for quality, this is the way to go, it just works.
My wife uses the 30GB white version and loves it. it does have a lot less space and shorter battery life than the 80 GB, but it is much slimmer feeling as far as the thickness and still has all of the other features that make iPods so great. We also both sync using the same itunes without any problems (turn off auto syncing to do this and drag songs etc to device.) This was not the case when we both were using Philips GoGears and Windows Media Player. Everyone else that I know that owns an iPod has never said anything bad about them, Apple really has a winner here, it would take a lot of convincing to ever switch me back over to windows based mp3 systems.
Want Apple 30 GB iPod AAC/MP3 Video Player Black (5.5 Generation) Discount?
First things first. The Apple sounds great. With the Etymotic ER4S (a reference of mine for over 7 years), I find the headphone amp to be a little warm & rounded under moderate volumes and to get a little brittle on top at high volumes. However, it doesn't get tinny and weird in the highs like the Sandisk Sansa e260 at high volumes and is far more transparent and delicate than the Sandisk, Phillips, or Archos units. It is a night and day difference from the Phillips when it comes to smoothness and lack of distortion. The circuitry is also well designed to the point that you'll never get thuds if you turn on or off the iPod when connected to a stereo. Since the headphone jack works much better into 10k ohms loads, I would assume the sound is similar to at least a good mid-fi CD unit if you use a dongle on the bottom to get the pure line-out from it.
However...
1) The battery is not user replaceable.
2) Battery life is below that rated by Apple unless under very controlled conditions.
3) There is no MTP or MSC support. You cannot use the unit with a non-Apple syncing program. You cannot drag music into it manually. You cannot drag music out of it manually. Imagine you accidentally delete an original recording off your computer and the only copy left is on this ipod...hope your ipod lasts forever. When it doesn't, you'll have to send it to Apple to replace the battery and they will not send your unit back, rather you'll get a refurb unit with a wiped drive. Again, you MUST use iTunes with it, and this program will constantly try to connect to the iTunes store to sell you something.
5) iTunes is NOT included in the packaging. You must download it. If you are unfortunate enough to temporarily have dial-up, that will take up to 5 hours and requires a steady connection. If someone picks up the phone, you must start over. If you have no internet at the moment, you cannot use this product.
6) These newest gen iPods are surprisingly laggy. Combined with the touch-wheel it is the least precise implementation of the iPod menu system Apple has executed to date.
7) You cannot jog/run with the unit, climb stairs rapidly, or walk too fast for more than about 20 or 30 seconds before it starts to lose the sound, especially with WAV files. I cannot stress this enough. If you hold the ipod in your hand and run gently you might get a few minutes out of it...tops. Eventually, it will still skip. Some micro-HD units can handle it, but this iPod is worse than a cheap Sony CD player with anti-shock in this regard. I find this perplexing, because Apple includes a stopwatch with lap markers on this unit. Do they think you'll leave a two hundred and fifty dollar timer just sitting on a track bench while you run?
8) The unit is EXTREMELY temperature sensitive. I went outside and less than 10 minutes later it completely froze up...processing-wise, but just the same. This was before I knew how to reset it, so I had to come all the way back home. It's not below freezing out and my warm hand was around it.
If you mostly want video, one of those dedicated video players is probably a better bet. If you're just gently walking with the unit and it is thermally protected inside a foam case or in your jacket, you'll be fine with the new iPod. Anything short of this will produce problems with it. I'm looking for good sound, skip protection, reasonable capacity, reasonable temperature durability, and thoughtful packaging. I did not find all of this here.
Edit: WinAmp now supports iPods. This is excellent news since WinAmp also has, via plug-in, 24-bit ASIO direct-to-output bit-perfect support. It makes a complete media playback package. This does not require a custom firmware inside the unit to work. Thank goodness for hackers!
It's no doubt that CD players are still being used today, but MP3 players are still an upgrade from those players. Similar to cassettes...actually similar to an 8-track to a CD player. Everyone knows that the MP3 player market has tons of brands to choose from. Yeah there's Apple, but there's also SanDisk, Creative, iRiver, and so on. But the question is what is more user friendly. I used to own an iRiver H10 and have to say I wasted 300 bucks on that POS. Only in five months the player kept freezing and I'm ending up reinstalling the firmware every three weeks. Finally in July it completely crashed and refuses to add music.
At that point, I stated that I simply REFUSE to buy another iRiver. Not again, to Apple I come. Actually I was a little anti-Apple but it seems that millions of people have iPods and work fine, so why on earth would I have trouble? Well, I have to say, I do like my new 5.5 Gen iPod. There are a couple of annoyances but otherwise it is a very decent player.
What comes with the player is: the iPod, a USB cable/charger, earbuds, and a slip in-case to resist fingerprints and scratches. The USB cable/charger is a bit underrated by these users. Yes you must eventually buy a seperate charger for long trips but the cord was not short at all. Also it's somewhat nice to have both the home charger and USB cable all in one so I don't worry about losing anything. The earbuds are average. The have a clear sound but less than adequate bass. Also if you're using white cords it's painfully obvious that you have an iPod. I'm currently using my new jWIN earbuds that have a dark cord and sound better than the Apple earbuds. The slip-in case won't protect your iPod at all. You should definitely buy a case, which I'd recommend a camera case, they're cheap and get the job done, plus they have slots for your earbuds. However the slip-in case is good if you like your iPod to be free of scratches (like me).
The first step when you wrap your iPod is to download the software. It does take a while if you have dial-up but you, no matter what, will have to use it. iTunes is a fair program and is better than WMP in my outlook. When you have iTunes downloaded you can now import your music and then export them to the iPod. iTunes only goes by ID3 tagging, therefore if you have your music already on your computer you should be mostly set and ready to add. Just drag Music to the iPod and (ta-da sounds goes here), it's on your iPod. It didn't take me long to load my iPod (someone on here said three days, lie I think), I'd use the conversation of 15 minutes per 1,000 songs at 192 kbps. Especially a decent time since I have USB 1.1. It'll probably move faster if you used AAC but slower if you used a hefty rate like 320 kbps. The computer suprisingly ran just as well with no iPod, while when I connected my iRiver H10 it was always a big issue.
When you get your music, videos, and photos on your iPod, it's up to you at this point. The best thing I'd do is get the album artwork for any music you have on your computer already. All you have to do is go to your music, select all, and click get album artwork. You do need an iTunes account but it's very simple to set-up.
The categories on the iPod are set-up very neat, making it simple to find what you want. There's also a well designed search function which is useful if you have a large collection of music.
Otherwise, the iPod has a few extras you might enjoy. Nope, it still has no FM tuner, but I'm thinking who cares if you have such a large collection of music, which made an FM tuner not a big deal to me. It has a clock which is nice but not a biggie. It has the ability to store contacts with pictures which is a good bonus (it would be really cool to see a phone in here or wireless internet on a later generation). It also has a calendar with a built-in alarm, but the alarm isn't very loud so keep your alarm clocks. You can also enter in text files, a good idea if you're a heavy reader. A little stopwatech is also included. And if you want people to lay off your iPod, there's also a screen lock which makes it impossible for people to get in. For other settings, there's a volume limit if your buying this for a kid and don't want to kill their ears before they turn 60. You can adjust brightness and backlight settings to save some of your precious battery life.
The sound quality from the iPod is good, but I found the bassier presets to be too much and distort a bit. My heart-set preset is hip-hop, providing good but not overwhelming bass and clear mids and highs.
The iPod also features games. This was a hit or miss for me. They were fun to play but ran somewhat choppy while listening to music. Not to the point where they're unusable but slightly annoying. If you didn't know you can buy extra games for five bucks each at the iTunes store. A little pricey if you ask me, but I did end up buying Zuma and don't regret it. And of course you can buy music, TV shows, and music videos on the store as well. Movies can be purchased, but the selection is slim so you may want to check out other services for that. Gift cards are avaliable at every store in the world. I've even seen them at Walgreens!
Some annoyances (or bugs) first started on the Click Wheel. I did enjoy it and will more the next couple of weeks but there's no way to change the speed of it. I wish there was because it was way too fast for me at the beginning and was hard to play some of the games and hard to scroll through things. After a week of owning it I've adapted to it but I hope the next firmware update fixes this. It only charges through the USB which can be slightly annoying so you might want to find a USB charger to wall for trips. This may also be not a good thing for older computer users. Mine is only a year and a half old and charged through USB just fine but it might not for computer older than five years. One last annoyance (actually a bug) is that when I disconnect my headphones the song automatially stops. I'm not sure why, it could be friction from the plug, but no other player I've owned has done this before.
For durability, I've only owned it for a day so far so I will definitely do an update but so far it seems to be durable enough for me. I bought a very strudy camera case and use the soft case that comes with the iPod and I'm sure that'll protect it very well. People say it's prone to scratches and fingerprints but I'd say tat both the screen and the iPod are not too prone to scratches or fingerprints, but the back is a complete disaster. I bought the white anyway so if it does get scratched it won't be a huge ordeal.
Although some bugs need to be fixed on the 6th generation, this iPod is definitely a good upgrade from the 4th generation and an excellent upgrade from a CD player. I will update as problems or good things come up, but for now this was definitely worth the purchase and the offical step up from CDs. 4 stars.
