My New 5G Video iPod - Worth The Upgrade?
I returned over the weekend from a seminar in Montreal where I managed to win an iPod Nano as part of a team exercise. Unfortunately I had no use for a Nano, so I sold it on eBay and used the proceeds to upgrade my 3G 40GB iPod to a 5G 60GB Video iPod.It’s taken me a while, but I’m starting to like it. As usual, Apple’s packaging was fantastic, however I was shocked when I opened the box and realised that the new iPods don’t come with a travel charger, a dock or a decent case like my 3G did. Admittedly, I can live without these but then I realised that the headphones have the lost the remote control which is a must-have and also that the 5G iPods no longer support firewire and only support USB 2.0. This is fine if you have a modern computer, but my 4 year old machine unfortunately doesn’t so I had to buy a USB 2.0 card on eBay which only arrived today. This was doubly annoying as I only purchased a firewire card to use with my old iPod!
One final gripe - I also discovered that Apple have ditched the power slot next to the headphone jack so my iTrip needs replacing. I guess this is the same for other users who have purchased iPod accessories.
Anyway, after spending 2 days synchronising my iPod using my slow USB connection I finally got to use my new iPod and my views started to change. The audio quality is a major improvement over my 3G iPod, with very little background noise and next to no noise from the hard drive, which is now ultra fast which is needed when you need to scroll through 8000 plus tracks.
The colour screen is excellent, although because Apple have adopted a smaller font it does create a lot of white space making it look a bit dull. Hopefully, Apple will update the layout with a software update as I’ve noticed other people are saying the same thing. Having the album art displayed is a nice touch and I’m glad I put the time in tidying up my collection.
As to the video playback, well I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The iPod doesn’t support most popular formats so I had to convert my videos so that they would playback. The image quality was excellent and the videos were very watchable on the small screen. Together with the AV-out capability I think this will definitely be the way I carry movies around from now on, rather than burning them to CD/DVD. It’s a shame I didn’t have the iPod setup on the plane from Montreal.
Was it worth the upgrade? Definitely, and once I get my new USB card hooked up for fast transfers and my iTrip replacement arrives I’ll be a happy bunny.
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Comment by CFREE on 20 October 2006:
that sucks but there are firewire / usb converters available.
Comment by iPod Lover on 27 January 2008:
yeah it really is tiring constantly having to convert music files