Apple iPod Video 5th Generation Black (30 GB) MP3 Player

For the money this music player is one of the best available, however, there are a few things Apple could have improved over the prior generation models that they didn't.

Issue 1: The LCD is too small for normal viewing. This ipod is a "video" model but yet I can buy a PSP for a $60 less, have more of a screen area, and still be able to play games. Keep in mind you won't have 30 gigs of storage, but I have almost 4,000 songs and 10 music videos and still have around 24 gigs lefts. Who really needs that much space?

Issue 2: The player uses a menu system that makes it very time consuming to find what you are looking for. Let's say you want to find a song by Kanye West. I can search by Song, Artist, or by letter. The problem is that by Song or Artist I have to use the ackwardly slow click wheel to get to "K" for artist seach. Or I would have to know the exact name of the song. The other way is to do a search and that will bring up everything that is spelt with K including song titles. They could improve this system by having a jukebox mode that allows you to pick the genre of music along with some of your favorite artists and just find music for you during differnet activities. For example: if I am working out at the gym I don't really want to listen to the PCD (as beautiful as they are). I would want something a little more hard-core and rugged. At the same time, if I wanted "spend some alone time" with my lady I wouldn't want to play 50cent.


Issue 3: The equalizer is and has always been pure garbage. Why include a feature with your product if all it does is take away from the experience. I'll leave that one up to Steve Jobs to figure out. He puts his stamp of approval on everything Apple produces. Steve are you deaf?

Issue 4: Unit scratches way too easily. I really wasn't surprised by that considering that it gets you to buy another one a lot sooner than expected just so you don't have to look at a case that ends up looking like the scratched CDs that they replaced.

Issue 5: Itunes software is extremely slow on PCs, very buggy, and almost always has a new version. This is by far one of the worst pieces of software I have ever used. It will slow your PC down and it gives you problems when you plug your device inot a different computer. If I was on vacation and wanted to add songs from a different computer it would prompt me if I want to erase my ipod and sync it with the new PC before proceeding. They really should just make it hard for you to put music from your ipod onto another computer instead of music from another computer onto your ipod. Also, all the import/export/sync functions are crap. If I want to put music on my ipod I shouldn't have to hit sync after I went through all that other crap.

Conclussion:
Not that Steve Jobs or anyone at Apple would ever listen to me, you, or anyone that doesn't have a controlling stake in their company or the competition but there is still a lot of work to do on this player before anyone can say it is perfect. You have the right idea with the iphone if you ever decide on making your next generation ipods based on its design. The Zune has way better software and menus than you do but it big enough to break a car window with.