My First iPod - 80 GB iPod with Video, Reviewed.

It’s generally accepted that anyone who loves music must, by definition, also own an iPod. If the halo-effect for the iPod is also accepted then it’s also possible that the iPod owner started with a PC and then switched to a Mac. Either way if you have an ear for music, then you must also have an iPod because if you don’t then you can’t be a real person. Or something like that. Regardless I’ve gone through over 3-years of music-cd ownership without owning an MP3 player of any variety (I have a Sony mp3 Discman but that doesn’t count) but a couple of weeks ago following constant fingering from my friends, particularly my good friend, Jayan I caved and bought the new 80GB iPod, much to the annoyance of my accountant (read: My savings account). After opening the box, going through the bits that came with the iPod (basically, new style ear buds, connection cable, universal dock adapter, basic soft case and quick start guide) and finally getting to the point of picking up the unit itself the overriding sensation that I got was one of weight. Yes, the 80GB iPod is surprisingly heavy and, frankly, much heavier than I was expecting. To be honest it is often difficult to gauge exactly what something will be like from its specifications but the overall feeling was of something that was solid. Personally, I’m not prepared to do something extreme like drop it on concrete but the build quality suggests that it stands a reasonable chance of surviving. The unit comprises of what was a shiny aluminum casing around the back and sides, a white faceplate (yes, I went for the iconic white version) and a clear plastic coating over the top for protection and, I think, just to make it look good. The click wheel remains in its usual position on the front of the unit with a dock connector at the bottom and headphone jack at the top. Given the connections provided by a bag that I recently looked at that offered iPod integration I can only assume that this is a change as it was clear that the bag wouldn’t work with my iPod as it was expecting some sort of connector socket beside the headphone socket. Also while the faceplate of the unit has withstood my punishment for a few weeks with no problems I should note that the metal casing shows up fingerprints really easily. Since I don’t have my new personal-laptop yet my first synchronization with the laptop happened at work across a 12Mbps connection and had to run all night to complete for about 13GB of music (some part of my CD collection) and 3GB of music-videos (iTunes, which manages the iPod for in version 7, converts the videos to a format that can be viewed on the iPod and can also store the originals as well). Of course, each subsequent synchronization doesn’t take anywhere near as long but it can safely be said that I don’t recommend using an iPod with less than a USB 2.0 connection unless you have a particularly paltry music collection, in which case you need to question why you need a full iPod in the first place (a question, I think all my friends are going to ask shortly) At this point I’d better get my major peeve out of the way. The current iPod firmware (1.2 at this time) has a bug in it that causes the unit crash when playing some pod casts. Apparently the crash only happens with mono-recorded pod casts (tried it with the HP product Video’s catalogue) and can be rectified by either setting the start time of the pod cast in iTunes to 1-second into the pod cast or by setting the EQ settings of the iPod to Off. This isn’t a show-stopping bug but I’m genuinely shocked that the new iPods have been available now for almost 2-months and no update to the firmware has been released by Apple despite this being a know problem. This sort of support is not acceptable worldwide, leave alone in India. OK, so that’s the whine out of the way and the question must be “what’s good?” Well, pretty much everything else as best as I can tell. 80GB gives me tons of space to fill and that’s what I’ve been doing now for the last few weeks. The music management and playback on the iPod is excellent. I’m not really an audiophile (but ask my audiophile friends, Mussu and Jayan) so I can’t really comment too much on what the overall audio capability of the unit is like but it sounds good to my ears, although I am going to be on the lookout for a set of headphones that will stay in my ears more easily (the right headphone always feels loose). Podcast management is a bit funky with audio podcasts accessible under the Music menu but you do need to look under the Video menu for video podcasts (oddly, video podcasts can also be found in the list of audio pod casts but when played you only get the audio, which confused me for a bit). Photo management works very well with my iPhoto library and its configured albums but I must confess that I’ve not really used this function much except to verify that my photos had been backed up and that it all works – on-screen image quality is fine but obviously not as good as on a computer screen or printed media. Additionally you get useful functions like international clocks (great for those of us with colleagues around the world and you need to know their time now), stop watch, synchronization with Address Book for contacts and iCal for calendar events (complete with scheduled alarms). Ultimately I’m pretty happy with the iPod. I’m quite certain that my enjoyment will increase once I get the new laptop and when Apple irons out the firmware bugs. It’s hard to compare this player with other MP3 players since the majorities aren’t really compatible but I can say that it has satisfied my requirements by giving me a backup of my digital media in the event of a problem with my laptop and acting as a damned good media player/games machine. Many cheers to Apple and thanks to my good buddies and my “American-cousin” for taunting and being contemptuous towards me, if it weren’t for them I would not have got one.

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