iPod Video

Written by Space Cadet

Sunday, 16 October 2005

The Apple iPod is a truly rockin’ gadget and is the ultimate in mp3 players. Its clever design features and seamless integration with iTunes make it simple to organise your music collection and carry it around in your pocket. Apple has recently launched the fifth generation iPod, the iPod Video, but is the new video capability actually useful or just a silly gimmick to sell more iPods?

The new 30 GB and 60 GB iPods are available in white or black and are thinner and lighter than the iPod Photo. The iPod Video doesn’t have an extended headphone connector like the previous models did and if you’re upgrading from a previous model, your accessories that use the extended headphone connector will be obsolete. The optional audio and S-video cables allow you to connect your iPod Video to your home stereo or television and with the optional universal dock with remote control you don’t need to get up off the couch.

Apple claim that the battery life has been improved to give up to 20 hours of music or 4 hours of photos but this only applies to the 60 GB model. In fact, the 30 GB model has a shorter battery life, with 14 hours of music and 3 hours of photos, than the iPod Photo which allowed 15 hours of music and 4 hours of photos.

The bigger 2.5 inch colour screen has a 320 x 240 pixel resolution and 260,000 colours and will play music videos, home videos, movies and television shows. So who really wants to watch videos on a tiny screen anyway? Most of us who want to watch videos will have a television close at hand and when we’re out and about strutting the streets it’s easy to listen to music but can you imagine trying to watch a video at the same time? I think not. For portable video watching, the Play Station Portable has a much larger screen and a much longer battery life than the iPod Video which only offers a meagre video playback time of 2 hours for the 30 GB model and 3 hours for the 60 GB model.

o will the introduction of video playback go the way of the photo playback? Will it be a nice little gimmick that people will play with a few times and then ignore in favour of using their iPod for its primary purpose – playing music? Only time will tell but with the pace at which Apple have been releasing new iPod models, maybe we’ll be discussing the latest ‘innovation’ in a few months time instead.

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