Sunday, December 11, 2005

The downsides

in action
in action,
originally uploaded by Mishaone.

Okay, so now its time for the downsides. Minor, admittedly, but just to get a fair picture of the 5G ipod.

Battery issues. Fear not, nothing major. I initially didn't think I would be playing videos much at all since my use for an iPod used to be primarily playing music. Videos was just a nifty add-on, much like photo support. However, the video playback and display combination works so well that I couldn't resist playing back videos on it even though I was near a TV and PC all day. Trouble with this is, it's easy to get carried away. Battery life with music playback is great, but if you should play two to three hours of videos constantly, the battery will slowly start to die on you. This, however, is an estimation, since I haven't actually played videos long enough to wear down the entire battery yet. If you're into playing a lot of videos, I would definitely recommend you go for the 60 Gigabyte model of the iPod video, which, in addition to the obvious (more space), also has a longer lifespan for the battery.

Video Playback Delay. Okay, this is really grasping at straws to find a flaw, but this one is most noticeable upon the first few times of playing video files. There will always be a slight delay (1-1.5 seconds max) between the instant you click on a video file to be played and the instant it will start playing. I'm not one to make a big deal out of having a portable video device respond slightly slower than my PC, so this one is really very minor.

Style vs Scratching. Which do you prefer? If you go with the black iPod, simply because it is just so much more stylish than classic white, be prepared for scratching. Of course the white one scratches easily too, but with white, you can't see the minor scritch-scratchy network as well normally. The screen has to be protected at all costs. Get a durable and soft cover to protect your iPod, no matter how stupid it may look. Annoying little scratches will keep appearing and accumulating constantly, so have a case handy when you purchase, especially since the case included is okay for initial use for quite flimsy in my opinion.

That's about all the downsides I can think of. Remember, do NOT purchase iPods in Pakistan. You will be purchasing it for nearly double the price with a million justifications for the disparity in cost here and "bahaar se" by shopkeepers.

Misha at Sunday, December 11, 2005

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