Well time for a review of this puppy. I’m not going to write a generic iPod review because there are thousands out there and I’d rather not make you cut through a lot of chaff like you usually have to do when reading this site.

Audio

• As strong as my iRiver out of the box
• EQ is there but I’ve never played with that
• Playlists on the go are fun, but I would like a bit more control over them, deleting songs as well as adding them.
• Album view might benifit from an option to artist names to the end of the album name
• I wish the volume controls wern’t quite so sensitive to prevent accidents (for those of you thinking “HOLD SWITCH FLAPFACE”, thats a bit of a chore)
• It’s nice and thin to hold
• Headphones are very comfortable and stay in my ears better than my beloved Sennhiessers did
• Thanks to iTunes, I now actually use playlists!
• I haven’t worked out if I can use shuffle but only within a playlist, say, a Smart Playlist, so I can listen to random Rock/Alt/Punk while skiing (note: answer was found here)

Photos

• Crisp and clear
• Slideshow effects impressive
• Very nice to have 3200 photos with me at all times
• iTunes didn’t handle the optimisation process well, a modal dialog preventing me from using other iTunes functions isn’t great for 30 minutes
• Backlight doesn’t stay on for longer when viewing them (2 seconds is great for browsing music, not so good for photos)

Video

• Really great, its like watching one of those portable TVs
• You percieve it as suprisingly detailed and its highly watchable
• Takes about 3 seconds to start up a 20 minute video, 8ish for an hour
• Can’t keep the audio playing while browsing the menus
• Remember that that backlight will be draining the battery faster, i suspect even moreso than the video operation is

Podcasts

• Much niceer now they auto-sync (thanks iTunes)
• Album art for them comes with them

Calendar

• Doesn’t interact with Outlook in a trusted fashion, requiring you (or something) to click yes to let iTunes Sync
• The alarms don’t repeat untill you turn them off
• It looks pretty

Contacts

• See above

Clock

• It’s now a world clock, with independent alarms for each timezone (that WON’T wake you unless you have your iPod hooked up to a stereo and have it start a playlist

Solitare

• Note to Jason: I beat it on my second go! I can do it!

Feel free to pick my brains and offer tips that I and others may like to try.