Peter's Blog

Bought an iPod Nano 8G, a black one. I decided on iPod nano because:

• the video ipod thing seems too big
• I can watch videos on pocketpc with big screen and comparable battery life. ipod on audio has >20 hours battery life.
• pocketpc is now loaded with sd + compact flash cards giving 2G. That is less than 8G, do the maths.
• microsoft are releasing the Zune and I want to spite them
• flash allows me to jump up and down without tracks skipping. I jump up and down a lot.
• nice integration with iTunes

Salient points:

• it is nicely portable, same width/height as my mobile but about 1/4 inch thick.
• aluminium case, not the scratchable plastic that other iPods seems to succumb to. No visible means of taking it apart, non-changable battery, trouble ahead.
• has silly little 1 inch colour screen that you can use for photo's but you would need to carry a magnifying glass around with you. Also shows tiny album covers.
• easy to use, can do basic operations without manual. Advanced stuff (e.g. changing ratings of tracks) are possible when you do eventually read the manual.
• touch sensitive track wheel thing is nice but it's a pain having to use the 'hold' switch to stop it going bananas in my pocket.
• nice menu access by artist, album, song. I prefer it to the itunes interface, having a list of all artists, including those on compilation albums, all albums etc means I find things I didn't know I had.
• over 1000 tracks and 6G used. I haven't yet prevented tracks I don't like being loaded onto it , this is everything I have ripped so far synchronised from iTunes automatically. Apparently playlists can be used to select what is loaded onto the iPod and prevent wife's hip hop taking up valuble rock space.
• podcast feature works nicely. I like to listen to some talk now and then, music can seem isolated and sterile.
• it is worth taking the time to rate the tracks: I now have over a hundred rated over three stars so I get an automated playlist of hours of favourite music.
• Swapped white earphones for my £7 Philips blacks ones and they sound just as good in my aged tinictussy ears.
• ToDo: playlist of up-tempo exercise bike music (e.g. Iron Maiden "Run to the Hills").
• ToDo: how to get it to shuffle the tracks in a specific playlist? Set it to shuffle and it shuffles everything, even the crap.

Moan: if I plug iPod into pc before booting, windows takes >eternity to boot. Comes up with a black screen while something or other happens to iPod which displays a 'do not disconnect' message. I find it better to boot pc before plugging it in.

Damn, no Red Hot Chillis on iTunes

Update: Stadium Arcadium has now appeared on iTunes. Unfortunately it's £15. Got the CD in Sainsburys for £9 and ripped it with no problems.