Reader Reviews

Third generation iPod

by otto

Apple's latest hard-disc mp3 player has been a soar away success since its launch in May this year. This reviewer got his grubby mitts on a 15-gigabyte model in mid-July. Here are some impressions after a week or so of use. [Errr, gaming site, otto? Gaming? -Ed]

It's small - smaller than I expected. It weighs a little less that your GBA SP, and it's about two-thirds the size (6x10x1.5cm). Not bad for a piece of kit that holds around 3000 songs (MP3s ripped at 128 kbps). That's - what - 200 or more CDs?

As you'd expect from a company that prides itself on the design of its products, the iPod looks and handles like sex on a stick. It's almost too pretty for something that will get heavy-duty use, but if you don't mind a few minor scratches you'll find it very robust. In use it's silent, and entirely solid-state except for the hold button (oh and the hard drive inside). The controls themselves are very intuitive - the touch sensitive scroll wheel is a great idea for quickly finding a given song. There is some noticeable lag sometimes, though, which will hopefully be cleared up in future updates to the iPod's firmware.

Let's turn to music quality. Your average music lover is going to be more than happy with the output, though he's going to want to get himself some other headphones. The ones that ship with the iPod sound flat and tinny - not to mention being white and highly visible. Might as well wear a t-shirt saying "mug me" [I've got one that says 'me, mugs' -Ed]. The iPod itself has a bewildering list of equalisation options, buried deep in the settings sub-menu, which I personally found less than helpful. A simple bass/treble control would have been far more useful.

There have also been grumblings from the user community about a volume cap on new model iPods sold in Europe. There are workarounds to this which you can find easily enough on sites such as the excellent ipodlounge.com, but frankly this reviewer can't see (or rather hear) the problem. It's more than loud enough as it is. I don't need a dial that goes to 11.

If you're connecting to a PC you'll need to go through a few hoops before you get things firing on all cylinders. If the sound of that puts you off, you might be better off waiting for one of the iPod's competitors due to come to the market in the near future, such as Philips' HDD100, designed first and foremost to work with Windows. But Windows users who like to tinker have an enthusiastic and knowledgeable community out there with plenty of excellent (and free) software solutions to get the most out of your 'WiPod'.

Games. Er, this being a gaming site and all, I suppose I'd better mention the iPod's three games, Parachute (basically Missile Command), Solitaire (Patience) and Brick (Breakout). They're a bit fiddly to control with the scroll wheel and, frankly, they're not going to drag you away from Snake on your Nokia, let alone Advance Wars on your GBA.