Review: 80 GB iPod with Video

A few days ago I replaced my old 60GB iPod Photo with a new 80GB iPod with Video. Overall it's an excellent upgrade from an older iPod, although if I had one of the previous generation video iPods I wouldn't bother upgrading.

The first thing I noticed was the box was much thinner than the boxes from previous iPods. However, the reason it was so thin was it didn't include an AC charger brick. It did include a USB cable and Apple's new earbuds.

The iPod itself is a bit slimmer than my old iPod although the screen is larger. The screen is also a lot brighter than my old 60GB iPod's screen. Unlike my old iPod, the new one only supports USB. Connecting a Firewire cable results in an error message. I find the new earbuds less comfortable since they don't include foam pads and they tend to slide out of my ear. The sound quality is pretty much the same as the old earbuds.

Several new features make it even easier to use than older iPods. When scrolling through long lists such as artists or albums, it will show a letter in the middle of the screen to indicate the position of the list. That makes it a lot easier to accurately select an item.

There's also a new search feature, which lets you choose letters from a row at the bottom of the screen and narrows the list of displayed tracks as you add more letters. However, it doesn't let you choose albums, artists or tracks; it will return everything that matches the letters you enter.

Video playback is excellent, although I would prefer a larger screen. Another major new feature is support for games which can be purchased from iTunes Store. I purchased Tetris & Mahjong to try out this feature. Game play is fast & smooth, with no loading delay. For some games like Mahjong, using the scrollwheel to play can be awkward. Tetris, on the other hand, is perfectly suited to scrollwheel control. You can even listen to music while playing a game, if you start playing a song and then go to the games menu and start a game.