Product Details

• Brand: Apple

Customer Reviews

The Suprise Price and Great Build Make This a Fantastic MP3 Player
Although there are no large differences between the last iPod with Video Playback (like there was with the Nano), Apple has done some improvements that should be to your liking. Apple suprised everybody by making the price $249, and greatly impacted Microsoft's future MP3 player's price point.

*Technically this is still not the iPod Video, this is still an iPod with video playback; rumors are still buzzing about a Widescreen iPod, but still no official word*

NEW:
-Longer battery life
-Games
-iTunes 7 has movies
-Search feature
-Larger capacity
-Brighter screen

GOOD:
-Great build
-Bright screen
-Battery life on video is double what it was before
-Great interface
-Innovative search
-Games are pretty fun
-Excellent design
-Minimal buttons
-Oodles of potential accessories

BAD:
-Still scratches easily
-Prone to fingerprints
-Sometimes a little sluggish (not as much as before)
-Battery isn't removable
-Still no FM tuner, line-in, or voice record
-Expensive accessories (not many in box)
-Cheap earbuds

BOTTOM LINE: Still at the top of its game months after its original release, and the minor upgrades and tweaks keep this the best MP3 player on the market.

Great Pocket Music Box with Video as a Bonus
I love this model of the iPod - it's compact and very user friendly. The black and chrome model does show smudges and scratches easily, so you may want to invest in a cover or a case in addition to the black velvet sleeve that comes in the box (nice, but you can't hit the controls or see the screen through it). Other than those minor quips, all you need to do is plug it in to your PC or Apple computer and it automatically registers itself and downloads everything you have in iTunes (with an option to download your photos as well).

The screen in this updated 6 generation is brighter, and the battery life is a little longer. Playing music without the backlight activated will last over 14 hours. Watching video or having the backlight on constantly will drain the battery at just over 3 hours. Not ideal for a Transatlantic flight or one to Europe, but great for domestic air travel and short commuter rides. You have to think of this as a music player with bonus video feature, rather than as a portable DVD player (even with movies added to iTunes). If you are in the market for more video seek out the 80 GB model which is has longer battery life and more memory to hold up to 80 features instead of 30 flicks at most. The unit is slimmer, the click wheel slightly improved, and it's about $50 cheaper out of the gate than the last models.

In the box you get the white basic headphones, a USB cable (no Firewire since the iPods are not Firewire compatible), a black velvet pouch for storage, a quick sketchy instruction booklet, and a docking sleeve for when you get a docking accessory. There is no iTunes installation CD, so be sure to download the program before you plug in.

The Way it Should Be
My wife and I had previously owned two Philips GOGear HDD6330 30GB mp3 players and had many many problems. Mostly with syncing the songs onto the devices and also some with proper playback. The interface was also not as nice nor responsive as the iPod. So we returned the Philips players and got an 80GB and 30GB iPod. Neither has let us down once. They sound great, the battery lasts for days (4-6 hours a day use). itunes is very easy to use and seems to almost know what you need to do before you do. podcasts are neat and free, you can download tons of videos from google video, you can put pictures on it, no problems finding accessories. It is really just night and day vs. the current windows based offerings. On the 80GB iPod we have about 6,500 songs, 50 videos, 200 photos, and all of our outlook contacts and it is only about half full. Not to mention the games that come with it. If you don't mind spending a little more for quality, this is the way to go, it just works.

My wife uses the 30GB white version and loves it. it does have a lot less space and shorter battery life than the 80 GB, but it is much slimmer feeling as far as the thickness and still has all of the other features that make iPods so great. We also both sync using the same itunes without any problems (turn off auto syncing to do this and drag songs etc to device.) This was not the case when we both were using Philips GoGears and Windows Media Player. Everyone else that I know that owns an iPod has never said anything bad about them, Apple really has a winner here, it would take a lot of convincing to ever switch me back over to windows based mp3 systems.