Impressions: 5th Generation iPod

I finally received my fifth generation iPod and while purchasing a camera at CompUSA Friday, saw a case full of full size iPods in all colors and sizes. I grabbed my new Canon A620 under my arm and asked the attendant for a white 60Gb version. To offer some background, my car was broken into and camera, 20 iPod cases (including my crocodile skin), accessories and my e5c Shure Earphones were stolen. The most important item was my 60 Gb iPod photo I had purchased only a few months before for about 600 bucks. I immediately started replacing things but was forced to get a 30Gb iPod since 60 was not in my price range a second time around. Either way I�ve been waiting for a new iPod since I have a little over sixty gigabytes of music on my system and that�s minus 20Gbs of podcasting material from over 40 shows I listen to on a weekly basis. I�m sure you can sense my excitement but read on for a more professional impression of the newest iPod family member.

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I have become guilty of calling this the �Video iPod� instead of fifth generation but this is a brand new iPod with a smaller form factor, larger screen and many UI improvements that just happens to play video. I won�t bore you with a full review but I would like to outline the key differences between yesterday and today�s full size iPod line. We all know what it looks like but how does it perform? The iPod is slightly faster. Boot times, song loads and image scrolling is much more efficient and snappier perhaps due to a larger SD memory chip or an increased processor speed (both improvements added due to video�s resource demands). The menu switching UI of selecting Genre � artist � album and song takes a little longer because the original slide transition effect between menus is the same speed but now you have a larger screen to cover and thus the menu seems like it takes all day. I love the fact that I can now read album lyrics and contacts in a much more legible manner than before where I was squinting to focus on a serene .7 inches smaller.

Almost every visual item is larger on the new iPod. Album art, progress bar, photos, calendars, games and even the amount of characters displayed on your screen all looks great and is in high quality. Some shading has been added to menu title bars and areas around the album art and progress bar in your �now playing� screen. I love the fact that I can have tons of items in the main menu at once but for some reason, the battery indicator and some games are the same size as before and have more white space around them and I don�t know why but the title bar has not changed from the last iPod in size but looks smaller now but of course no one reads that bar anyway.

Performance is amazing. I was concerned about many things but my Monster FM transmitter works in my car with audio and video. I played the new Jack Johnson video on the iPod mounted on my dash while the audio is coming through my speakers. That is great for video podcasts as well that you don�t have to watch to get what is happening. The battery life hit 20 hours for audio and 3.5 for video and the display was crisp and clear. I now use a pair of Shure E4c earphones and sometimes heard the HD spinning up in between songs and high piano notes were not as crisp as on my computer with the 4th generation iPod. The fifth gen iPod fixes the issue wonderfully. Highs are crisp and I don�t have any feedback from internal moving parts. I am not sure why this is but this iPod has some issues with delays when waking up from sleep while in video Now Playing mode. If I have a video playing and turn the iPod off and return later hitting the select button the screen turns back and it takes a few moments for video appear or I have to hit menu and start playing the video again because the system chokes.

I also had issues with the initial synching since I have an iPod photo and iPod video, both have their own iPhoto database in my pictures folder as well as their own Album art files and iTunes chokes a bit when I sync both at one time. I used to sync a 4th gen grayscale, 4th gen photo, iPod mini 2nd gen and the iPod shuffle all at the same time with no issues but only one supported album artwork so it was never an issue. These both have different size screens and that complicates things a bit. A tip for current iPod photo owners, while syncing the new iPod, turn of album artwork, syncs the iPod then turn it back on. Not doing so will cause some hang-ups on your new iPod. Since the screen is larger, if you sync the album files from your old iPod they will be digitally stretched on the iPod causing CPU hanging. Reformatting those images to fit the new screen is helpful in performance.

The iPod is beautiful and the best one to date. The nano iPod is beautiful but with 4 gigabytes of storage it�s just insulting. I need more music and I need all of my music with me wherever I go and the new iPod does that with my 3900 photos and 200 videos. This is my iPod for the next 12 months unless some unfortunate fool steals this one.

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