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The new iPod shuffle and nano - Holy **** (1 Viewer)

Steve Y

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All the iPods are being updated. The new video iPod is up to 80 gig (from 60) with brighter screen and slightly longer battery life... same price!

I thought my 60 gig would be hard to fill up... but I was wrong!
 

Christ Reynolds

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i love my black 60GB ipod with video (NOT called the video ipod :)) so i dont think i need to upgrade just yet. my ipod shuffle doesnt play music anymore, but still stores music fine. but that new shuffle...i love it. i think i like the look and feel of the old nanos better than the new ones that look like really small ipod minis.

CJ
 

Craig S

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I'll be upgrading my nearly full 60GB 4G iPod Photo to a black 80GB 5G model. Woo hoo!! More space!!

The other thing that's now available on the new iPods (and the new iTunes 7) is gapless playback!! That's right, we can now listen to side 2 of "Abbey Road" (among many others) without those annoying little skips in between tracks.

The new iPods with video also have a new selection of games ("Tetris", "Bejewled", "PacMan", etc.) you can download from the iTunes Store for $5 a pop.

There's also a new search option on the new models that lets you zero in on a particular song by selecting letters from a list. Sort of like how you do the quick search in iTunes by typing, but this is with the wheel. Hard to describe - go to apple.com and check it out.

iTunes 7 looks to be a fairly major update. There's a slight redesign of the interface. You can now browse through your album art like you're flipping through a stack of albums to choose the album you want (again, see apple.com for a demo of this). As mentioned above, gapless playback is now supported. iPod firmware updates are now distributed through iTunes instead of the separate download they used to be. iTunes can now automatically update album art for any tunes you have which it can match in the iTunes Store (apparently even if you ripped them yourself to MP3 format). There's also an improved video player for videos downloaded from the store.

Speaking of videos... Apple announced their long-awaited movie service. Only Disney and affiliated titles right now. $10 for catalog titles, $15 for new titles ($13 if you pre-order). And, ALL videos from the store have had their resolution doubled in both dimensions - from 320x240 to 640x480.

Lots of cool stuff, for sure. I'll probably be playing with iTunes 7 all night... :)
 

Brian Perry

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Are the screen and battery life the only differences between the new/old 30gb ipod? I just purchased the "old" 30gb ipod today for $299, and an hour later read the announcement about the new one which is only $249 and has a better screen and battery life. Luckily I didn't open it, so I will be returning it and getting the new one.
 

Michael_K_Sr

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Time to upgrade my 4GB Nano. I could live with it even though it's scratched to hell, but the gapless playback is the real reason I'm going to upgrade. I hate listening to live recordings with a gap in between. The extended battery life is a very nice bonus as well.
 

Craig S

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I'm pretty sure that's the case. There is a firmware upgrade for the original 5g iPods which adds the gapless playback & ability to play games. But since the new one is $50 less and has better battery life & brightness, it's a no brainer to take your unopened one back.
 

Francois Caron

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http://www.mobibluamerica.com already had a 1 cubic inch player on the market for over a year. It even has a display.

Alas, I wouldn't mind having a few dozens gigs of storage space for my music collection, but the player MUST include a standard 3.5mm jack for my Grado SR225 headphones. The other problem: finding an MP3 player good enough for my headphones.
 

ThomasC

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The iPod has gotten great reviews for sound output, and it sounds great with my Sennheiser HD280s.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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The big thing for me is the 640 x 480 resolution. The iTunes store is finally on a roughly level footing with the bootlegs. With that being the case, I'm much more willing to pay for the convenience of having it ASAP.
 

Jassen M. West

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Actually if you're looking for a great sounding player get a Creative Zen, any model that suits you. I have grados as well and have tested my Zen vs Ipods (same song, same bitrate) and the Ipods don't sound as full. Might have something to do with the 97 dB SNR on the creative player. I also get 18-24 hours of playback on my zen, depending on how loud I play it. The video zen also plays xvid and divx encoded videos.

I'm not trying to thread fart here but the man asked for a great sounding player, just giving my opinion.
 

DaveF

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I got a 4GB nano last Christmas; engraved and everything :) Its too new to replace, but I'd love the 8GB. I have about 5GB of music, and have to juggle songs currently. The additional memory would mean I could keep my entire library on the nano. It would be perfect. (sigh). Oh well, better my 4GB nano than no nano. :)
 

Kimmo Jaskari

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The iPods have always been focused on style over sound quality, and I doubt if that has changed. They are however kings of style, so much that I myself find myself eyeing them speculatively before coming to my senses. ;)
 

Craig S

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That's an oversimplification. The iPod's main selling feature IMO is the UI centered around the scroll wheel. I've tried lots of MP3 players in the past. Owned a Rio & an Archos, also tried Creative's offerings. I was trying to avoid the Apple juggernaut, but one day I picked up an iPod in Fry's and started playing with it. After about 30 seconds I "grok'ed" the click wheel interface, and at that point I knew I had to have one. It's just SO easy & quick to find what you want with the scroll wheel. Nothing else I've seen comes close to it.

As far as sound quality - each generation of iPod has improved. The latest generation is quite good. My Nano is the best sounding MP3 player I've owned. The 5Gs are supposed to be even better. I'll find out when my new 80GB model arrives next week. :)
 

Jassen M. West

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Any interface becomes easy once you get used to it. Sure it plays compressed music but when listening to any music player I want the best sound quality. Plus one of the new search features on the 5th gen has been on my Zen all along.

We should go have a DTS vs DD discussion now, ;)
 

Todd K

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Will I have to reimport my music collection to take advantage of this? Or just re-transfer it to the ipod? Just wondering how it will know that a previously gapped playback should now be gapless.
 

Ray Chuang

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I just ordered a 4 GB iPod Nano with the new blue metallic case. :emoji_thumbsup:

Question: since I have iTunes 7.0 installed on my system, do I need to load any more software before I can plug in my new Nano to computer? :confused:
 

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