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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
A couple months ago I received a fifth generation iPod, one of those Video iPods, from one of those online sites that gives you a free iPod after you complete a couple offers, and have a couple of your friends do the same.
I never really wanted an iPod; truth be told, I was just going to give it to someone as a gift, but after looking at the small sleek packaging, I decided that since I had put some hard work into getting the little device, I might as well use it.
Now I'm not a big fan of music. I listen to music in the car and when I workout, but other than that I do not really listen to music very often. Although the iPod is a portable music player, the new iPod Video models also have the ability to play games, show photos, and watch TV shows / movies.
I was really surprised when I took the black iPod Video out of the packaging
and saw how small the device was. I was never interested in any iPod before,
so I never really paid attention to them. I was expecting the iPod to be
about half the size of those old Walkman cassette players, but the iPod is much
smaller. Even though it has a thirty gigabyte storage capacity, the device is
slightly larger than a deck of playing cards.
I installed the iTunes software on my computer, and the program automatically installed all of the music from my computer onto the device. Now, because I don't really listen to music on my computer only about ten or fifteen songs were transferred over.
At the same time, I noticed that not only could I purchase music with the iTunes software, I could also purchase TV shows for around two dollars an episode. I became greatly interested in this fact when I found out that a couple of TV shows were available for free. I immediately downloaded the free TV shows to test how the quality of the shows on the small iPod LCD display screen.
While I was not very interested in the free TV shows I had downloaded, I was very impressed with the quality of the playback on the iPod's LCD screen. I was so impressed that I went back to the iTunes video store and purchased a couple episodes of some old television shows that were not shown on TV anymore.
As the weeks passed, I soon found out about several websites that provided content for my iPod Video for free. Google Video even has a service that will convert any of their videos to the iPod Video format. Now I have so many TV shows, commercials, and even full movies on my iPod I do not even have any music left on it.
The only gripe I have about the iPod Video's video performance is the fact that playing back long TV shows will quickly drain the battery. While I never have any problems watching a couple twenty five minute episodes of a television series, watching an hour long television show or a movie seems to make zap a completely charged battery. While I understand for such a small battery, an hour and a half
is great, I just kind of wish Apple would have made the iPod Video a little larger to accommodate a larger battery.
I mentioned earlier that the iPod Video not only plays music, but it also does a lot of other things. I already mentioned how I was not even listening to music on the device anymore, but I am not always watching television shows and movies on it either. The iPod Video has a lot of nice little extra features that have
been keeping me busy when I just do not have enough time to watch a complete television show.
The iPod Video also stores your photos on the unit, which is a pretty useful idea. Now whenever I am talking to one of my old friends or family members, instead of describing what my puppy did, or how my basement looks, I just pull out my iPod and show off the photos. The iPod Video even lets you add transitions to your
photos so that you can make little slideshows.
My iPod also allows me to display text files and store contact information for all of my friends. It even came with three games; solitaire, break out, and a copter shooting game. While these games aren't exactly the greatest, they are awesome to play when you have a couple extra minutes to kill. The iTunes store also recently started selling games for the iPod video, too. Priced at nearly five dollars a game, you can play games such as Tetris, mini golf, and my personal favorite Vortex. All of the games are made specifically for the clickwheel so you should not have any problems playing the games.
I am still more than content with the iPod's built in games, but I still purchased one, mainly because I wanted to see how well the iPod Video handled 'real games'. I was very impressed and hope the company continues to release games for the iPod Video in the near future.
One problem that I have with my iPod video isn't about the unit itself, but rather the accessories that come with the iPod Video. Instead of including a regular power adapter that could be used to charge the unit from a standard wall power outlet, you have to use the USB transfer cable to also charge the unit. This has become a pain for me several times, because I always want to charge my iPod outside my home, but I never can because I always leave the transfer cable attached to my desktop PC. Apple has a AC adapter charger available, but in my opinion thirty dollars is a little too pricey for something that I believe show have been included for free with the price of the iPod Video. While I can find lots of other third party
accessories for much cheaper than their Apple counterparts, I still have been unable to find a cheap wall power adapter.
In the end, the iPod was made for playing music and instead I use it to watch TV shows, commercials and movies and play a game every now and then. I never had any intention of actually purchasing and using an iPod, but now I am glad I have an iPod Video. Like I said before, I do not even listen to music on the thing, but I still carry it with me nearly every day. I am very impressed with how awesome this thing is, and now I completely understand why Apple is dominating the music player market with these devices.
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