I've been eyeing the color iPod ever since it was called the iPod photo last October. But the $495 and $595 price tags were too rich for my blood. Now that the price has dropped $200, the color is hard to resist. The high rez color screen is so much better than the mono screen in my 3G iPod, it's ridiculous.
My downfall came while I was in Portland last week staying with my friend Kathy from my college days at Portland State. She had an underutilized 30 gig iPod photo, a brand new Dell PC with 17" flat panel display and a big shelf full of CDs. While I was there in my spare time, I helped her get the better part of her CD collection into iTunes. We also went out one day and picked up a Bose SoundDock. That became the house and patio stereo for the week. We shared music and rocked out.
Once we had the SoundDock, we needed to fill the iPod with some cool playlists. Every so often I would need to handle (fondle) Kathy's iPod. I was surprised how good it looked and felt. Until then, I didn't really know what I had been missing.
Finally, yeserday, I did it. I bought the 60 gig. It would have been so much easier to pop for the 20 gig for $299, but I really wanted more room so I could add photos and do some serious Mac backup in a pinch (remember that's tax deductible). I took a deep breath and pulled out my Amazon Visa.
Regular readers know I am easily excited but I really have something to be excited about with this new color iPod. It is a joy to use. I would say that the color screen is 5x more readable than my 3G iPod. The type looks so close to laser print. The crisp, bright color makes using my iPod so much more enjoyable. Apple has a point when they say "everything sounds better in color." By the way, I bought a high-quality screen protector at the store - this screen isn't going to get scratched!
As Delicious Library allows me to enjoy, appreciate and more fully use my book and DVD library, so does the Color iPod enhance my use and enjoyment of my music (and photo) libraries.
Podcast listening is so clean, so simple. I can read whatever show notes a podcaster manages to post on my iPod. That means I can see what they are going to talk about and decide whether to listen at all or to skip ahead to stuff I want. Operation is smooth as silk with the click wheel.
And, of course, there are the new color subway maps for the color iPod too. If you need one, maybe that's just the excuse you need to get a new iPod.
One reason I hadn't already picked up a color iPod was that the rumors about the video iPod were so persistent. I was waiting to see what that would be like. But, enough rumors said we won't see a video iPod this year, that I decided to make my move.
The rumors of a color iPod mini this Fall sound pretty credible, so you might want to wait for one of those if the mini is more your style. I like the mini, but it's not out yet and I sure like having 60 gigs to play with. I use PodWorks, by the way, so that I can copy from my iPod as desired.
A drawback of putting a big collection of music on a big iPod is that you need to have that music on a computer hard drive somewhere. What's 60 gigs among friends? Not really a problem, but if you don't have the iTunes you use most often on a device with lots of room, you are out of luck. I mainly use my 80 gig Powerbook. I can't just gather music and podcasts on my Powerbook iTunes because I don't have room for a full sync to my huge new iPod.
It would be nice right about now to be able to see the music and photos on my iPod and be able to simply drag stuff onto the drive. Apple? But, back to my trip.
Kathy was so happy with how things went that she loaned me her iTrip for my long drive home. It worked great. Especially when set right underneath my car stereo receiver. Excellent! But, I still had my old iPod then and had to really strain to read the screen to change playlists and select podcasts. Next trip I won't have that problem.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, mobility, music, podcasting