Like many people I was eagerly awaiting the Steve Jobs' keynote at the WWDC conference yesterday. However I couldn't give a rat's ass about the iPhone. The deal breaker for me is QWERTY. I need it. However I love the idea and would like the Touch. However 32gb for $500 is also a deal breaker for me. I was hoping that the new iPhone would bring with it a second discussion. That of new iPods or a reduction in price on the touch.
The problem is though, I outgrew my 80 gig 5.5G iPod. Say what you will but with 80 gigs I was constantly cleaning it off and making compromises on what albums stay on by certain bands. That is unacceptable. I also want to rip more and more into lossless formats since my headphones are so 1337. So, I have eyed the 160 gig iPod classic but heard many bad things about it. I was also secretly hoping he would refresh the line and perhaps introduce an iPod with even MORE than 160 gig storage so I can rip everything into Lossless and live in a new golden age. This was not to be as no iPods were mentioned at all yesterday. The Steve didn't even lower the price of the Touch along with the iPhone. So I went out and bought a 160 gig classic.
One thing this means: I have a perfectly working black 80 gig 5.5G iPod if you know anyone who wants to buy it.
So that photo above is the new 160 gig sitting in my iPod dock on my desk at work. Having owned this for 24 hours with the latest firmware that addresses many bugs I have some comments on this thing....
Stuff I like:
-The new interface ROCKS. I love how everything is more graphical and on menu screens it makes little slide shows from your album covers. There are many cool little touches that make you feel like you are using a cool modern 2.0 device.
-FINALLY there is information displayed on your iPod. It still won't tell you what individual songs are ripped at like my old creative did, but it will tell you how full it is, how many songs or videos are on it, the firmware version, etc. This is very welcome. I like knowing this stuff when it is not plugged into the PC.
-You can browse album information in cover flow view without changing what you are listening to. It is a subtle touch but it gives you the sensation of browsing your album collection. It feels more natural than just sorting through text based lists. It is a lot of fun to poke through your shit while you are on the train.
-Tons of space finally! Full formatted out I get about 140-144 gigs of real usable storage space. That kicks the ass of the 74 usable gigs I got out of the 80 gig model. Now I am getting closer to a real celestial jukebox in my pocket. The fact that I spent 4 hours loading in music last night and I am not even half filled up makes me giddy.
Stuff I do not like:
-The fucker is SLOW. Believe the hype. I heard it used to be much worse before they fixed the OS with firmware updates but it is still sluggish. Once it gets going everything is good, but if you are going into menus or backing up into directories there is a noticeable lag that gets worse the more music is on the iPod.
-WTF is up with the screensaver you can't disable?? When the backlight goes instead of just being dark, the iPod defaults to a static screen which displays the time, date and battery status. You have to touch the wheel a few times to wake it back up and see what the song playing is. I googled around and discovered everyone who owns a new iPod HATES this feature and is waiting for a firmware update that allows you to disable it.
-The volume coming out of my iPod dock is much lower and seems to have an EQ curve that is skewing towards the mid-range. It sounds like I have a sweetener or some sort of EQ setting on it but I don't. Also I swear the volume is a bit lower in the headphones as well. I checked the settings and I have the volume limiter disabled.
So I'm pretty happy but have stuff to get used to. And let me know if anyone wants to buy my 80 gig!
