Right on the heels of my iPod nano review, Apple had to go and make another iPod. Lately I’ve been inclined to believe the people saying Apple just does this to make you want to upgrade – it’s like a disease. But they keep improving the thing, I have to admit that.

The “new iPod” as Apple calls it comes in 30 and 60GB white or black models. I purchased the 30GB Black model for this review. Retail price on this model is $299+tax at http://store.apple.com.

Both the 30GB and the 60GB version of this unit look very similar to the iPod Nano in design, but are much wider to accommodate the screen (for video content). They are comparably much thinner than the older iPods as well.

The new feature in this lineup is the ability to play MPEG4 and H.264 (an MP4 variant) video. The screen in the unit is a 2.5″ 320×240 pixel screen, which surprisingly enough felt a lot bigger after watching it for a while. The sound depends on how well the original file’s sound was recorded, but sounded good enough for my ears on this podcast.

I tested my iPod with two videos, the video for the Gorillaz song “Feel Good Inc”, from their website, and This Week In Tech Episode #27. Both videos displayed pretty nicely on the iPod – the TWiT video seemed slightly choppy – but that may have been the encoding method used. I was impressed at how simple the videos are to navigate – similar to how the music navigation works.

As far as music, this unit is similar in operation to all other iPods I’ve ever used, with the notable exception of the really large screen. This makes album art display in a huge size and also most longer song titles don’t need to scroll on the display anymore like on the older iPods.

I found the headphone amplifier in this model is slightly louder than my iPod Nano was. This I am not sure why, but it makes it easier to not have to turn my AUX-IN up so loud in my car. Other than this interesting find, I felt the sound is the same (in my opinion – I have no scientific proof here) compared to other models.

I also enjoyed the increase in size over the Nano. Try as I may, I couldn’t shoehorn the best of my music library into the Nano’s 4GB size. The 30GB gives me some room to breathe, at least. Someday I may upgrade to the 60 if Apple doesn’t put another new one out in a week.

Overall, I’m quite happy with the “new” iPod model. It’s nothing revolutionary, and video playing portables exist already (see the Sony PSP for example, which has a much better screen than this), but It’s still a new, slimmer, cooler iPod. The coolest non-nano version yet.

Pros:

+ Larger, color LCD
+ Longer song titles viewable on-screen
+ MP4/H.264 Video support
+ Thinner than 4th Gen iPods, not much thicker than the Nano.

Cons:

- No XviD/DivX/MPEG support (honestly, how hard would this have been to add)
- Battery life while playing video content is less than stellar
- USB2 only, No FireWire support (seems to be a trend with the new iPods)
- Scratches show easier on black, glossy case (get a sock).

As many people know by now due to the flood of advertising on TV for the iPod nano, it’s out like a ton of bricks.

Before seeing the announcement I had no clue Apple was even planning a new iPod at all. But I ordered mine within hours of seeing it existed. I just couldn’t help myself, it was too slick.

I wrote a previous review on the 6GB iPod Mini. This unit is essentially the successor to the Mini – so much so that as this unit appeared on Apple’s site, pretty much any reference to the Mini disappeared from the store. It was as if the Mini never existed. If Apple were politicians, I’d be afraid of them.

Back to the nano. I currently have a 20GB 4th generation iPod, The one with the monochrome screen. I got it three months ago because I dropped my 6GB mini on the ground so many times that I decided to sell it on eBay. Poor sap who bought it knew it was scuffed, too. One of my complaints about the Mini was the slow drive and the easily dented soft aluminum case, which was much more scratch-resistant than any other iPod model, but also dented much easier.

The nano is back to Apple’s glossy plastic look again, complete with the fingerprint-magnet metal backing. I kind of wished they would have used the materials from the Mini to make this unit instead, but other than that it is quite pretty.

The nano includes the capabilities (for the most part) of the “Photo” series of iPods (other than the video out to a TV feature). It’s screen is smaller, but it is still very readable.

Transfer uses USB 2.0, Apple for some reason decided to drop support for Firewire on this unit, possibly because they couldn’t fit the circuitry that firewire requires in such a small package. This is a minor complaint for me, but I can see why people would be mad about this.

Transfer speed is extremely quick, easily as quick as most USB 2.0 memory key drives. It copies songs faster than the Mini by quite a bit, and is faster than the hard drive based iPods as well.

The nano uses solid state flash memory (2GB or 4GB of it), which makes skipping or drive damage due to shock a thing of the past. I never had any of my old iPods skip while i was biking and I always take care of them, so this is just an added cushion.

Battery life seems on par or more with the Mini. Apple claims 14 hours and I have yet to test this fully. I have no reason to doubt this claim based on previous players and the fact that this unit has no moving parts. I don’t use my iPod to the point where the battery is dead very often so this is of little concern to me.

The weight of the unit is nearly nonexistent. I could not tell this thing was in my pocket while I had it on me. That is definitely it’s greatest asset (along with it’s size). It’s about the thickness of 6 credit cards and is not much larger in area than a credit card.

Sound quality is on par with other iPods, I have noticed no difference between this and the many others I’ve used. One downside is the headphone port is located on the bottom of the unit instead of the top, which as of yet has not bothered me. Perhaps this is because I mostly use my iPod in my car through an auxiliary-in jack to the car stereo instead of with headphones.

My opinions on music players change as much as the tides these days, but right now this is definitely the best MP3 player in existence. I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it. Unless you have to have your entire music collection on you at all times (I have 70GB of music but only listen to a few gigs of it at once), I can’t recommend any music player any more than this one.

In Summary:

Pros: Amazingly slim and light, fast transfer speed, SHINY! PRETTY! I also don’t need to like U2 to get a Black iPod now either (thank god).

Cons: No Firewire connection, Bottom-mount headphone port, 4GB max memory, Kind of pricy for a 4GB player. No video out (who watches photos on a TV anyway?)

Final Verdict: Despite the small flaws… Get one. Right now.

I have to admit. I’ve always been a hater of the iPod mini. Ever since the original 4GB model came out, I’ve always said the only people who buy them are people who aren’t real music fans. They load it up with their favorite Steve Miller Band album and rock out to it at the gym, and it serves their purpose just fine. People who like singles should love the mini. I however really pride myself on having a huge variety of music to listen to, somewhere in the area of 450-500 albums and growing by something like 2-3 a week these days.

But for some reason, I felt like I should try something new. I had an iPod Photo 60GB before this, the biggest iPod apple makes. I figured I needed my entire music library available to me at the touch of a button wherever I went… Pretty rational idea, no? Well, it got to be sort of tedious. I mainly was using it hooked up to a computer at my office as a standard hard drive. The iPod’s interface isn’t very good for navigating through that many albums at once. The way iPods deal with “Various Artists” albums (like many of my trance and house mix CDs) is pathetic, scattering my albums out to an unreadable mess of Artists who only have 1 or 2 tracks under their name. Very uncool.

Well, to solve this conundrum, I decided I should look for a really cheap USB 2.0 or Firewire hard drive in the local CompUSA advertisement, and use that for my music library at the office, which would allow me to sell the pricey and gigantic iPod Photo and buy something a little less expensive and a little smaller. I found a 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive for $50 after rebate at CompUSA and sold my iPod Photo 60GB after only 4 months of use.

Now, I have to say, this was an impulse purchase. You will find out reading this site that my entire tech gadget purchasing habit is not entirely thought out in advance (wow, surprising!). I like to buy things without thinking about whether they may actually have use in my day to day existence on this planet. On the plus side, it affords me the ability to rant to you about it on this webpage, which is nice.

Back to the iPod… So I purchased the Silver 6GB iPod Mini from the king of all impulse purchase stores, which is PCconnection.com (yes, their motto is everything overnight – even if you order it at 1 AM in your boxers). I knew full well this would show up the next day at work, so I ordered one. It showed up the next day at work in it’s incredibly tiny little box.

Going back to the color, I purchased the Silver one. Now, I guess If you’re a girl, you will buy pink (mmm, gender roles rock, don’t they?) – They eliminated the “Gold” color for the new model (I have no idea why). The two other colors left are some facsimile of Blue, which is OK with me, and the burn-your-retina Green model.

The first thing I noticed on this iPod mini versus the old one was the lack of any “extras” in the box. It seems like Apple is getting skimpier and skimpier about extras.

Here’s what came in the box:
- The iPod
- An insanely short, 4′ USB cable (Apple used to include a 6′ cable)
- The stock Apple white headphones, which make even the bassiest music sound like it’s being played on AM radio.
- Some software CDs that aren’t useful at all (honestly, who doesn’t have iTunes installed by now?)
- Some white thing resembling a belt clip that I promise I will never use

Apple apparently doesn’t think anyone needs to charge the iPod outside of a computer, and does not include an AC adapter with the unit anymore. They also don’t include a FireWire cable if you wanted to use an extra one you may have had laying around, either. Big minus, but I guess I’ll live with it.

Overall the small case design was impressive. Apple knows how to make products desirable, even the packaging is smaller than the “Cube” iPod boxes we’ve been used to for years now. Very small and light. It made me feel like I was opening a device from the future! If I could rate boxes, I would give this box a 10/10.

The actual iPod itself has a lot to it. I was able to fit approximately 65-70 full albums on the unit encoded in the LAME –alt preset standard MP3 codec. These MP3s average around 192kbps in variable bitrates. The transfer rate from the computer to the mini’s microdrive is much slower than to a regular hard drive-based iPod, probably about 2-3x slower, but it doesn’t make that much of a difference since this unit’s microdrive takes less time to fill up. Copying takes approximately 20-30 seconds per album.

The interface on the iPod itself is the best interface out there for a MP3 player. The clickwheel is a godsend, and having scroll capability and click capability in one unit is excellent. I found the touch sensitivity on my iPod mini to be semi-lacking and had to sometimes blow on the wheel a bit to heat it up so it would respond. I don’t think I have morbidly cold hands or anything, so I’m not sure why this model is not as responsive in that department. The aluminum case is tough and I found (unlike other iPods) that it does not require a separate protective case if handled right. I hope the full-size iPods move to the aluminum case eventually.

The screen is typical and similar to the larger monochrome iPod units. The only differences are that the size of it is smaller, the font is smaller, and a big drawback in my opinion, which is that the title of the Album apparently is not important enough to display on the screen like it was on all the other iPod models. I can live without it, but I swear they could have squeezed that in if they wanted to. Maybe in a future firmware update.

The sound quality is excellent, I usually use mine in my car through an Aux-in headphone jack on my Aiwa CD receiver. I do not have any complaints about the iPod’s sound, except between tracks there is no “gapless” feature (come on Apple, you’ve had 4 years to iron this one out!) This completely wrecks my mix CDs but I’ve become accustomed to the glitch between tracks. I just wonder how difficult this would even be for Apple to implement. It works just fine in Winamp.

In summary, the iPod mini 6GB works great if you either don’t have a whole lot of music, or only care about listening to the “current” stuff you’re digging and have supplementary storage elsewhere. The price is right (at $249 USD) for something cheaper than the unnecessary iPod Photo.

Pros:
- Great battery life! (Apple claims 18 hours)
- Small form factor
- Tough case
- Good backlight
- Great sound quality (with good headphones)

Cons:
- 6GB may not be enough for everyone
- Extremely short USB cable (4′)
- No firewire cable
- No AC adapter
- Included earbud headphones are garbage (with good eBay resale value!)