Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112945 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Apple
• Model: 60GBiPodPhoto
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Dimensions: .40 pounds
• Display size: 2

Manufacturer's Description
A delight for the ears. A feast for the eyes. Though it's no bigger than a pack of playing cards and weighs in at just over 6 ounces, iPod Photo delivers a one-two sensory punch. Letting you carry an entire library of your favourite music -- up to 15,000 songs -- or enough photos -- as many as 25,000 -- to fill nearly 200 slide trays or cover nearly 5,000 square feet of wall space. Got a really big den?

iPod Photo displays 25 full-colour thumbnails at a time, which can be scrolled through the same way you scroll through song titles.

The new iPod Photo feature a razor sharp LCD display that lets you see your photos in vivid colour -- 65,536 colours, to be exact. And with its built-in backlighting, you'll be able to admire those photos indoors or out. Take Your Photos for a Spin Like its famous siblings, iPod Photo features the touch-sensitive Apple Click Wheel that's the envy of the industry. You'll use it to navigate iPod Photo's new menu. Now in living color, its easier to read than ever. That's thanks in part to the clarity of the display -- it offers 220 x 176-pixel resolution -- and in part to the new Myriad typeface. Spin the wheel to Music, and you can scroll effortlessly through dozens of playlists, hundreds of albums or thousand of songs. Or highlight Photos. iPod Photo displays 25 full-colour thumbnails at a time. And you can scroll through them the same way you scroll through song titles. Quickly. Just spin the wheel to see more. And when you see a photo you'd like displayed all by its lonesome, just click the centre button and voila. No one will have to say "cheese" as long as you have iPod Photo around. Whether you're listening to tunes or checking out photos, you're sure to be all smiles.

Get Brownie Points for Sharing If you'd like everyone else to smile right along with you, iPod Photo makes it easy. Sure, you could let them take the Click Wheel for a spin themselves, but here's a way to get extra points for style. Use the included AV cable to connect iPod Photo to a projector or TV. You can mesmerise friends and family with a glorious multimedia experience, offering them a breathtaking slideshow accompanied by the music you already have on your iPod Photo. Of course, you get to choose the songs, albums or playlists. And talk about smart, iPod Photo optimises your photos to fit on a standard (4:3) or widescreen (16:9) TV. iTunes 4.7: Your Photo Passport Wondering how you're going to get all your digital photographs into iPod Photo? iTunes 4.7. The new version lets you import your images directly into iPod Photo from a folder on the hard drive of your Mac or PC. Spent time organizing your photos using iPhoto on a Mac or either Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 on a PC? iTunes 4.7 rewards your diligence by importing the albums you've created in iPhoto or collections created in Album or Elements. You'll be able to choose them from the Photos menu on iPod Photo.

Wait, there's more. iPod Photo features even more robust Auto-Sync capabilities. Now, in addition to offering the industry's best music syncing, iTunes offers stellar photo syncing, as well. Update your photo collection by adding images or creating new albums, and the next time you connect iPod Photo to your Mac or PC using the included FireWire or USB 2.0 cables, iTunes 4.7 will automatically synchronise your photo collection.

And did we mention that iTunes 4.7 also autosyncs Album Art? It's true. The Album Art downloaded when you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store is transferred to iPod Photo along with the music. So while iPod Photo plays your tunes, you can enjoy the Album Art -- in colour, of course -- on the Now Playing screen.

Enjoy Improved Battery Life
Whether you're on a transcontinental flight or an extra long hike, if you plan to listen to music for hours and hours, iPod Photo has you covered. Fully charged, it lets you enjoy up to 15 hours of continuous music; or up to 5 hours of continuous slideshows with music. Use the iPod Photo Dock, FireWire or USB 2.0 cables to quickly charge the batteries.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

iPod Photo - worth the upgrade
This is my third iPod, and it has answered more than a couple of quibbles I had with the others. Firstly, the size of the disc is a real bonus for anyone with a volume of CDs and/or tracks in his music collection, it's great to be able to move about with your whole music library in your pocket - wherever you're going, gym, for a walk, on holiday. Particularly on holiday. Makes those idle beach moments just that much more pleasurable. It'll still take you the best part of a week to process 900 CDs, but once the legwork is done, updating your library and playlists is a doddle.

That I can also cram in heavens knows how many photos (the ad says 25,000) is a real bonus. Mind you, who on earth wants to lug around, let alone look at that many holiday snaps? Once set-up, the slideshow function works well when connected to a TV, although watching it on the iPod is a little odd, as you get a row of three pictures in thumbnails. The one just gone is very small, the one you're looking at is somewhat larger and back to the small size for the upcoming photo. None of these sizes are designed for viewing your photos in comfort. If, however, you just use it to cruise through your photo library, just like whizzing through all your music, track by track, the thing really gets a move on. You can select your own music to accompany your slideshow, which adds a nice touch for family and friends. I could see the combination of these features as being useful to unattended portable business presentations too.

The dial is now much more positive, with a distinct click to the touch when selecting one of the main functional areas. A neat feature in this model, which I hadn't noticed in previous versions, is that the track being played pauses when the external source (headphones or hi-fi) is disconnected.

There are a couple of negatives, but they are far outweighed by the slick functionality and smooth styling of this bit of kit. You must have a Mac or PC to properly arrange and import your photos, so the plethora of iPod devices which allow you to store photos on previous iPods, although they will still work, won't present your photos in a viewable format on the iPod. Then there are those earbud headphones! They might be a fashion statement, but apart from the discomfort, any man with hairy ears (everyone over 35, then) will find them unusable. OK, the iPod works so well, that having to go out and buy real headphones isn't that much of a hassle that it's likely to take the smile off your face, especially when you consider that you own the best of the current series of iPods.

A few flaws - significantly outweighed by product excellence
I have long been looking for a quick and easy way to backup and keep by my side my burgeoning photo collection. As the owner of 700 or so CD's the new Ipod photo 60Gb seemed the a logical (if a little expensive!) acquisition.

I ordered from the apple store (more expensive than Amazon!) and it arrived a week later direct from China, in the meantime all of my spare time was spent putting my CD's into iTunes on my PC, a job which I still haven't completed, about 200 to go.

Even though i am windows through and through I bought an ibook about 3 years ago purely for its beauty, to be honest I didn't like the user interface, the quality and design of the product and packaging were however second to none. The ipod arrived at work and the packaging and quality were up to this high standard - apple really do understand the needs of people who are prepared to pay for quality.

I spent a frustrating afternoon trying to get my PC (a 1.3Ghz Dell with WindowsXP home) to install the ipod through a newly acquired usb 2.0 card without success. Windows kept seeing it as a newly connected usb device and running the 'New Hardware found - locate drivers dialogue' there were no drivers as such on the disc. I surfed for answers, tried everything including uninstalling and re-installing all of my usb devices without success. As a seasoned windows user however I remained sanguine, popped the little monkey into my briefcase and waited until I got home. I had recently installed a decent sound card on my identical home PC with a firewire port built in, in went the software, I hooked up the ipod via its dock and hey presto we were in business. I did need to re-format the disk on the ipod which may make installation at work easier next time round.

I left it overnight loading the 3000 odd songs, it then took about an hour to load the 4000 photos currently on my pc on Saturday morning (iTunes has to convert them first, but you can set it to keep the full resolution images on the ipod).

Once all of this was complete I set the thing up in the dock next to my HIFI and hit Shuffle - I fell to my knees in front of it as the album cover popped up with Miles Davis Seven Steps to Heaven and it started to play track 4 (good taste these people at apple) and off it went, dredging my cd collection for songs that I hadn't heard for years and reinforcing my belief in my impeccable taste in music. Anyone who has a big CD collection will know of the frustrating knowledge that there is so much music that remains unlistened to for literally years. In my opinion this is the best thing about the ipod it keeps your CD collection alive.

SOUND QUALITY

If you are the sort of muso that likes to move his entire furniture collection to the other side of the room to reduce the sibilance on a particular track in a 25quid Naim CD - then the ipod is not for you.

Having read up on the internet about compression rates and listened to samples I went for AAC compression at 160kbps which is pretty close to CD - ON MOST TRACKS!! Some tracks when played on CD and compared make the ipod sound laboured with woolly bass, the whole track seeming just a little distant. I also turned on the 'Sound check' option which keeps all of the tracks at the same volume this too has a muffling effect on some tracks. But mostly the ipod is good to excellent when compared to say a CD walkman.

The whole thing is that you can't look upon this device as a 'hifi separate' it really is a new way to get access to your music, much more like a radio station - you lose some sound quality but what you get in return is more than enough compensation.

I also spent £25 on a belkin tape adapter for my car - it does hum and the sound quality takes a little bit of a dive, but again - it is more than bearable and what it gives you in terms of music access and portability far outweigh it's failings. You can't hear the hum when the music's playing and you're driving along. Take a look at the Denison Ice link on google.

THE PICTURES

The quality is good and if you shuffle through the entire library quickly using the wonderful click wheel you get the strange feeling your entire life is flashing in front of your eyes as you flick through 4000 moments in the space of a few minutes. I took it out to a family lunch and it was a really great way to pass photos round, this is so good as so many photographs stay unseen on hard disks nowadays. You can plug it into your TV to get a sound-tracked slide show also great to have on in the background at family occasions.

I've said it once and I'm going to say it again, the same applies to the photo side of the ipod, it gets your music and photos off a hard-disc/CD and out into the world to be looked at and listened to.

Its sound quality is flawed, the accessories are pricey, you may end up with a nightmare installing it on a PC.

BUT!!! It brings your music and photos closer, is made really well, has an unbeatable consumer satisfaction and gadget value and what's more it looks really cool.

Take a deep breath, get the plastic out and buy one now... you won't regret it!

Now, I wonder what Jane Birkin's doing these days.

A is for Apple
Well, what can you say about what is probably the best thing you'll buy this year or next? Let the kids go hungry and get yourself one of these little beauties, that's what I say.

Let me start off my review with a confession. Since picking my iPod up the other day I haven't seen my family, or indeed daylight, for days. No Christmas TV repeats for me! The capacity on the 60GB model is quite simply HUGE - plenty of room for your entire music collection as well as, and here's where the new iPod is a delight, all your photos in suberb quality. There's room for thousands!!!

No need to get technical here - just read the technical blurb instead. All you need to know is this thing's a monster.

Feel like hooking your iPod up to the TV to show your friends/family/strangers your holiday snaps with an accompanying soundtrack? No problem for this little fella. And the battery life is less of a problem than on previous models.

And what's more it looks great when I'm showing it off to jealous people!

Go on, what are you waiting for. BUY ONE!!!!