I've had an iPod 5g for about six months now and thought it was about time for a review on it. Overall, I think it's an okay mp3 player. Just okay.
It is nice that you can listen to music, watch videos, and view pictures, ebooks, etc. with it.
You can even play games on it. I really like the music trivia game. It plays a clip from one of the songs in your library and lists the title along with four other song titles and you have to choose the correct song. It's fun.
Viewing pictures is very nice. You can scroll through your image library with the click wheel very quickly, without the images freezing or slowing down. It has very good resolution for such a small screen.
Watching videos on the small screen can be a little difficult... because it's small. I usually have to hold the iPod fairly close to watch it comfortably. But that's no surprise. I expected that much from a small screen. It is also annoying that I had to convert all of my videos to the apple approved format.
It plays mp3 music just like every other mp3 player. It also plays the apple's proprietary format, AAC, which I don't know much about. I haven't used it.
Using the click wheel to scroll through the menus is cumbersome. It can be difficult to select an item because the click wheel is touch sensitive and usually moves to the next item while you are lifting your finger to open the song you want. So then, you have to try the click wheel again and move up one song. Which of course, when you finish scrolling back and forth to reach the one song you want (not easily), when you lift your finger, it moves again.
The menu system is actually fairly simple. Categories are broken up logically and it is easy to find the things you need.
I do wish there was an easier way to change the shuffle and repeat settings for music. If I want to turn off the shuffle option, I have to navigate to the root menu and then scroll
to the settings folder and find the shuffle option. Then find the appropriate shuffle setting to select it. Then, in order to change any music, I have to navigate to the now playing list. It seems there should be an easier way! It's definitely not something you want to do while driving.
Now that I've had my iPod for a while, I wish I would have bought a Zune. (My wife insisted on the iPod) The Zune has a bigger display, bluetooth, and it supports more standard media formats. iPod only supports mp3 and the apple standard formats.
Last comment. I can't easily run with my iPod. If I clip it to my pants, the constant motion and jarring of the iPod can make it freeze. This probably isn't a problem with the flash memory iPods, but with the ones with hard drives, it is. I would run with it on my arm, but the strap I have isn't very comfortable and tends to either cut off circulation or slide around too much. And I'm not about to hold it while I do my 5-10 mile runs!
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