The good: The enhanced iPod has the same sleek design with improved video battery life and brighter screen; it brings gapless playback to the masses; up to 80GB; new features such as instant search and enhanced games; movies now available in iTunes 7; excellent overall value.
The bad: The Apple iPod has added no major functions such as FM radio, wireless, recording; small screen not conducive to movie viewing; proprietary USB cable; narrow native video-format compatibility; body is still scratch prone.
The bottom line: The amazingly low priced updated Apple iPod gets many under-the-hood improvements, but it's still not a true video player.
Specs: Device type: Digital player; See full specs >>
Price range: $219.95 - $599.00
iPod performance: ups and downs
Most of us know that the preenhanced iPod was dogged for its two-plus hours of video battery life--a scrawny amount for watching movies in addition to enjoying music.. Now you'll get 75 percent more battery life with both sizes--that means you'll get up to a rated 3.5 hours of video battery life for the 30GB version and up to 6.5 hours for the 80GB. Audio playback is, strangely, the same--that is, up to 14 hours for the 30GB and 20 hours for the 80G. For CNET Labs tests, we got our hands on an 80GB version, which did nearly meet the audio estimate with 19.8 hours. When set to "factory brightness," the player offered a rather spectacular 8.7 hour battery life for video.
In unofficial testing, the 80GB version was able to play back a wide-screen iTunes movie (with brightness at default) more than three times, and very close to 6.5 hours. Officially, the CNET Lab tests found the iPod could handle 8.6 hours of video playback using the default brightness setting, 5.6 hours at maximum brightness, and 19.8 hours of audio-only playback. That's pretty impressive. Video, too, looks nicer on a brighter screen (and on a new iPod with a virgin screen), though the wide-screen movies are just too small to fully enjoy.
Boosting battery life will always make a product more appealing, and it looks like Apple responded to all the complaints. Basically, this brings the iPod in line with other players, such as the Creative Zen Vision:M and the Toshiba Gigabeat S, in terms of video battery life. And now you can watch a couple of movies on a plane trip, plus have some extra juice for music and photos. Navigating the iPod is as smooth as ever--we experienced little to nil processor delays, though we often feel the hard drive engaging and disengaging.
So that's it--while the 6G "true video" iPod will still be a figment of the tech world's imagination (check back at Macworld '07), the enhanced 5G iPod looks more attractive than ever with its incremental updates. It looks the same as the original (accessory companies breathe a collective sigh), but under the hood, you have an iPod that makes the original 5G iPod look rusty.
Pricing is a huge aspect here; $249 for the 30GB iPod, as far as I know, is the best price for a 30GB player I've ever seen. And for another $100, you get 80GB! Nice job there, Apple. For me personally, the gapless playback and better battery life make the iPod the most attractive one to date, and it's certainly a better value than the similarly priced but much smaller 8GB Nano.
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