Apple iPod Photo (60GB)

2.0 stars

"Really good at some things, very mediocre at others" on August 3, 2005 by aadmikep

Pros: Storage capacity - Available accessories - reliablility

Cons: Sound quality - iTunes - large library management - easily scuffable

Summary: I've had my new 60 GB color iPOD for about 30 days now. This is not my first portable digital audio player and in this case, I know it won't be my last.

When my old 20GB player died, I spent a lot of time reading about everything that's out there and everything that's expected to come out in the near future. I wanted to buy something for keeps. So, I went al out and bought the 60GB version.

I got that one because I have around 7,000 songs ripped at 320kbps. So, I love better sound quality. I am really into digital photography and wanted to make sure I could have a player that will empty my camera's memory card when I'm away from home.

I am in the custom side of the consumer electronics business so I have lots of friends with portable audio players. Everyone that owns an iPOD talks about the strength of available accessories. I'm coming to agree with this. I found an unbelievable deal on a ipodz case that is really good quality. Then there's the apple accessories, optional photo dock and camera adaptor (for file transfer without a PC). I also bought the iTrip fm modulator that sits on top of the iPod so you can listen to your library while in the car.

The reason I mention easily scuffable is that I have three friends that have iPODS from varying years and al three agree that it scratches and blemishes quite easily. So, I bought mine with an OPTIONAL lined leather case and immediately shoved it in there. I have to slip it out of the case to slip it in the dock and just that action alone causes small scratches on the front and also on the metal back. I don't know why they haven't addressed this. My old player looked terrific years after I bought it and I seldom kept it in a case.

i-Tunes is the software that you install in your computer to rip, sync and manage your music library. It has some good things but what you should know is that is has some glaring shortcomings. If you have a library of 50 or more albums installed and you want to play all the songs by a certain artist, you might have a hard time doing this since the software may give first credit for some of those songs to another artist that collaborated on the song/album. A strong case in point is Santana's recent album which has several guest artists. Another glaring issue is identical album names. Let's say that you went to the music store and bought the "Greatest Hits" albums from all your favorite artists of the past. i-Tunes and the iPOD see all the albums as just one album and you end up with a big mess when you look for a Greatest Hits album. This means you have to rename it to something "Eagles Greatest Hits" or Queen’s Greatest Hits. Another shortcoming is the naming of CDs. Sometimes it sees an album as an import when it is not. This means that it just named the songs incorrectly.

As for my issue with the iPODS sound quality. I'm use to clear, clean, dynamic and distortion free music. I use some $40 some in-the-ear phones that really sound terrific. Unfortunately, there are lots of times when I can clearly hear audible distortion coming from the iPOD. This can be with the battery charged, EQ defeated and the volume low. I can repeat the music with different settings and hear the same distortion over and over again. It just wont' go away. I check the PC library with the same headset and no distortion. In fact, it sounds terrific.

iPOD navigation seems great for small libraries. But it's rather tedious when you have a big one. i-tunes wants to just throw all of your files on the iPOD when you first dock. This may lead to seasonal music playing when it shouldn't. Not to mention all those B-Side songs that I just ripped to get the whole album in my PC collection. The best way I've found to deal with this is to tell i-tunes to auto-sync only the playlists that I check. then create smart playlists using the star rating system. Then go in and hand rate 0-5 stars for every single song you want to have copied to the iPOD. Then, use the iPOD playlists function to play nothing but 4-5 star songs or 3 star songs, etc. And yes, it is very time consuming. However, If you're willing to invest the time, the result is pretty good. Now if I could just get it in and out of shuffle play more easily.

Viewing photos from your PC is a neat feature. It's really just more than bragging rights to show previous iPOD generation owners.

Podcasts are well supported. It’s nice to be able to subscribe to a podcast and know that it automatically syncs new episodes to you iPOD whenever docked. I never realized that I would like this. I do very much like it.

I'll keep this unit for a year or two until someone develops a 40+GB player with high sound quality. If it sounds good, all the other shortcomings can be overcome, right?
When that happens, I'll sell this one at a loss to get the other. After all, I bought it to listen to music, right?