The Mack Daddy of Digital Media Players

For the time being, this is the mack daddy of mp3/mp4 digital media players. I bought mine six months ago and I've yet to use more than a fraction of its storage space, even with videos and a slew of songs from every artist I could think of.

When I bought mine, I paid $399. Since then, the price has dropped to $349, making it unbeatable. Since its release, a number of competitors have come on the scene, but surprisingly none of them have come out with either more for the same price, or the same for less. Nor have any of these competing products come forward with a better navigational system than the click wheel, which crosses the logical elegance of a directory tree with the kinesthetic ease of one-handed scrolling by thumb.

The most powerful drawback to this device is the reality that many people don't need this much, at least not at this point in time. If you just want to listen to 200 songs, there are cheaper products that can put 1GB of storage at your disposal. For those just getting into digital media player, the lowly Shuffle may provide the smallest, cheapest access to tunes-on-the-run, though the Shuffle doesn't have a screen. If you want a screen, the Nano is a nice step up from the Shuffle - and Nanos can be hacked to allow video. The 80GB video iPod is for the iPod geek who wants the 'Benz of iPods. It's the most expensive, and the largest (though not any larger in size than the regular 30GB iPod).

For those who've never used iPods, let me go over a few basics. To put songs on the unit, you need a computer running Apple's iTunes store. The software, which comes with the iPod, is designed to make it easy to use Apple's iTune's store, where you can purchase songs for 99 cents each - and videos for a variety of prices (the cheapest I saw were $9.99 while the hot stuff was $14.99). You don't have to purchase through the iTunes music store to add songs or videos to the iPod, as long as the songs and/or video are in a format the iPod can read (mp3/mp4). A fair number of the songs and video on my iPod are from a variety of other sources, including CDs I own. There are rival services whose songs you can't load onto an iPod, but fortunately, the Mac/Window issue steers well in your favor. iTunes is clearly the dominant player in the market, with the most songs available, and the iTunes software works on both Windows and Mac platforms.

So, in summary - as far as this point goes - you don't have to purchase your tunes from the iTunes store, though many do because of the price and convenience. You do, however, have to have a computer running the iTunes software, which is where your tunes will be stored. The nice thing about this software is that it indexes the tunes fairly well, so you can review them by name, duration, artist, album, genre rating, "my rating," play count, when they were "last played," and whether you want to activate the equalizer in playing them.

As a distinguishing feature of the video iPod, there are separate folders for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and radio. As with the regular iPod, there are built-in playlists you can activate without any effort - including 90's music, music videos, my top rated, recently added, recently played, top 25 most played and party shuffle, which is the software version of the shuffle feature found on the iPod itself, which randomly picks songs, if you crave a return of the "box of chocolates" approach from the days of radio. You can also create your own set of playlists, which is a convenient feature when you want to set aside certain songs for certain genres or activities. Because the unit can store up to 20,000 songs, the more organized you are, the less of a headache it will be to get to what you want without having to wade through everything you have.

With its many software features, including the equalizer, the multiple forms of sorting songs and video, and the diagnostic command, which helps you fix problems that come up, Apple makes it very convenient to use their hardware.

But that's just the beginning.

The unit itself comes with its own built-in battery. I've heard horror stories from people trying to get a replacement battery, but have yet to need one. Battery life depends on how much energy you burn from your iPod. Variables include how long you leave the screen's backlight on, how often you turn that backlight on, and how bright you set the screen (It's possible to turn off the backlight altogether as well as leave it on indefinitely). Another variable is whether you're listening to music or video, the latter of which drains the unit fast because you're stressing the hard drive and using the video constantly. The nice thing about charging an iPod up is that you simply plug it into your computer and forget about it. You can buy a separate charger to charge it up from the wall, but since you need a computer to store your songs and update your directory, the easiest way to charge up the unit is to simply plug it in. I'm not certain exactly how long it takes to charge the unit up from near death, but an hour of charge usually satisfies my needs. I often forget to charge up my iPod, and can go for days without doing so.

My iPod stores music, tells me the time, separates my music and video into playlists, artists, songs, compilations, genre, podcasts, composers and audiobooks. It holds photos and videos. It sets up slideshows. Its screen is smaller than the newly-released Microsoft Zune but not by much and frankly, it's easier to hold this unit upright than it is to hold a Zune sideways - and since you're holding onto several hundred dollars in hardware, not to mention thousands of dollars worth of music and videos, I'd rather have a firm grip on my property. In the meantime, the video settings allow you to watch NTSC and PAL, as well as full-screen and widescreen video. With a separate accessory, you can output your video or playlists to your TV.

Among the unit's extras are a clock, a place to store (and play) video games, a place to store your contact information, a calendar, a place to store notes (including audio notes, if you purchase a separate microphone), a stopwatch and password security, so you can protect your secrets. The unit comes with an ample list of settings you can control, including an onboard equalizer.

Apple has made these things accessory magnets, so you can plug a variety of accessories in, provided you have room in your wallet. These accessories include an external microphone, a radio receiver, a radio transmitter (so you can play your iPod and hear it through your car stereo), external players that can convert your iPod into the brains of a powerful stereo system, a separate remote (so you can control your iPod without holding it), firewire hook-ups, lots of different mounts, external skins, chargers, et cetera.

For me, the most annoying thing about iPods in general is the ease with which their soft, plastic exteriors and stainess-steel backs scratch up. Unless you don't mind having your iPod scratched up in your pocket, you should invest in some kind of iPod protector. You can pick up a wallet-like cover for a few bucks, get rubber skins, or even go for a hard-plastic see-through case. There are thin, latex-like strips - screen protectors - you can buy. I put one on the back of my iPod, to keep the stainless steel from scratching up, but I find that this type of skin diminishes the beauty of my iPod. In fact, I've yet to find anything that really satisfies, so I've settled on the felt pocket/cover that comes with the unit. So far, I've had no problems.

The iPod is essentially a tiny computer with an enormous hard drive. For that reason, expect at least the possibility for computer-related mischief. One good reason to have your tunes stored on your computer is as a back-up. One of the surprises I experienced, when I first purchased my iPod, was the reality that you can't add or subtract songs except by changing the list as it reads on your computer - and then by updating the unit to reflect what's on your computer. For that reason, you don't want to dump the songs from your computer's hard drive, to save space after you've put them on your iPod.

But there's more to it than that. One of the benefits of this arrangement is that it provides you a foreseeable back-up should the hard drive fail. In six months of taking it here, there and everywhere, I've had a few quirky moments where I got this "apple of death," usually when the battery power was low, but I've been lucky to never experience and actual hard-drive failure. I anticipate, however, that given enough time - and perhaps enough songs and video loaded onto it - I will eventually get hit with a most inconvenient shut down.

When that day comes, and it probably will, I'll be okay. Because everything begins first, with the computer you hook it up to, you have a back-up ready and waiting. It's not like the typical hard-drive loss, where the average computer user is up the creek for failing to anticipate the worst. This system is set up with that very crisis in mind.

And so, because of its maxed-out capacity, its unsurpassed versatility, its small size, beauty and breathless array of features, I can't think of a better product. If you want less, pay less and get something else - maybe a Shuffle or a Nano. But for the cost, I have not yet seen anything that comes close. If you're willing to pay the premium, this is where it's at.