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Ars Technica Vivisects A Video iPod
phaedo00 writes "The guys over at Ars Technica have put together another one of their infamous reviews. This time they tackle the video iPod and give it a proper review, complete with vivisection and a discussion of the guts." From the article: "It wouldn't be an Ars iPod review without a dissection (or in this case, a vivisection since the patient survived) and discussion. Talking about what changes were made on the exterior of the device is fine and well, but the real interesting stuff--to me anyways--is found within. As the old adage says, 'it's what's on the inside that counts.' With that, I'm dismantling this iPod in the name of science. All went well: I was able to put to back together and it's working fine." An interesting counter-point to previous coverage.
Since they knew they were slashdotting the hell out of it, the least they could have done was include in the summary whether the battery leads are soldered in place (as with the nano) or on a nice easy-to-swap pin connection. It's really just about the only thing I'm remotely curious about regarding the new iPod.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think that the stress testing in Ars technica's iPod nano review should be done on the video iPod as well. I clicked that link expecting to see an ipod getting run over and all I get is it being pulled to pieces.
This is what I call a proper review.
The article mentions that the iPod's video codec chip is capable of decoding 640x480 MPEG-4-SP, not just the 480x480 that Apple has claimed.
Has anyone actually tried getting a 640x480 video to play on one of these?
Apple should have instead installed a video camera or digital photo camera instead. Maybe both.
Check out the Olympus mrobe Mp3 player with 20 gig., 1.2 Megpixel camera and 3inch screen. $199 at some stores on sale. Some have seen it for $150.
I can think of one very rational reason -- Macs can booth from a Firewire-based iPod, but can't from a USB-based iPod.
This has me a bit cheesed off, as I've used some space on my 3G iPod to install a minimal Tiger installation. I'm a road warrior, and if something were to go wrong with my PowerBook's hard drive while on the road, being able to boot off the iPod to do diagnostics and run utilities is a huge boon. It saved my bacon once when my PowerBooks hard drive decided it was time to stop working, and I had to quickly try to back-up the data I had most recently been working on.
I won't be able to do that with a 5G iPod now that it no longer supports Firewire. I suppose if I decide to upgrade to a 5G (or future) iPod that I'll just have to keep my 3G iPod around for booting from in emergency situations.
Yaz.
Actually since you can't really power down an iPod (it goes to sleep
but the cpu is STILL powered up, just running on low power) the DID
operate on it while it was powered.
The biggest tradeoff with this first-gen video ipod, imo, is the lack of firewire I/O. While it does allow the unit to be thinner and have a longer battery life, not to mention a lower production cost, it also reduces its appeal for Mac geeks by removing the ability to boot your Mac from it. The real-world file transfer rate of USB 2.0 is also about 10-15% slower than FW400. Mac-specific utility has apparently taken a back seat in iPod design priorities. Not what I would call a disaster for Mac users, but it points to an unfortunate, but also possibly an inevitable, sea change in Apple's tradition of treating Mac users as first-class citizens vis-a-vis the PC lumpen.
As soon as I figure out how to sync it with my TiVo, I'll be set.
While the loss of firewire is no doubt tragic to some people, to the overwhelming majority it's really no big deal -- comparable transfer rate with USB 2.0, and virtually any computer built recently has loads of USB 2.0 ports.
IMHO, the greatest misfeature of iPods is their continued lack of a user-replaceable battery. This has been a problem since the first-generation model, and still hasn't been addressed on the fifth. The "send us your iPod and we'll replace the battery for you" solution is mighty inconvenient and expensive, especially for those of us who don't live in the US.
Besides the advantage of being able to zip over to the local electronics store for a new battery when the original one stops holding a charge, it would also allow people to own more than one good battery, thus providing a simple way to extend the effective battery life... battery died? Just pop in a fresh one.
This seems like a huge value-add that would be really easy and inexpensive to implement. I know I won't be buying an iPod until they do.
Having just purchased a Nano, I was curious to find out what effect it would have on my hearing while riding. Answer: none that I would worry about.
1. Once you go faster than a slow ride, there's enough wind noise to cut down hearing anything else by at least 50%. The iPod buds are less intrusive than this.
2. There's not a whole lot of road noise to hear anyway. Modern cars are so quiet that a cyclist has to rely on seeing the cars rather than hearing them.
It's not illegal for car drivers to have their windows up, radio on and aircon blasting away. When I do that in my car, I can't hear shit. I have watched emergency service vehicles come up behind me, sirens blaring, and I couldn't hear them. My radio's not up loud. So if no-one cares that car drivers can't hear anything, and aren't required to (deafness is not an impediment to getting a driver's licence) then I don't understand why people get all out of whack about those damned cyclists with their damned headphones on.
Speaking of which, it's time to listen to some space music http://207.200.96.225:8020/ mmmm spacey.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."