Product Reviews

Apple's new iPods, which are available in 30GB and 80GB capacities in black or white, were perhaps the least exciting announcement to be made at the company's Showtime event in San Francisco last month.

With most attention focused on the additions to the Store, the revamped nano and the redesigned shuffle, the daddy of the range slipped out almost unnoticed. That's entirely understandable, given that most of us expect the company to release a 'proper' video iPod in the not too distant future. Whether that release will be this year or early next remains to be seen, although the smart money is on early 2007.

In the meantime, we have to satisfy ourselves with an upgraded fifth-generation iPod, whose maximum capacity has been increased to 80GB. Like the nano, the iPod screen's brightness has been boosted by 60%, making it much easier to see in bright daylight. Battery life is up to 14 hours of audio for the 30GB iPod and 20 hours for the 80GB. When playing videos, battery life falls to 3.5 hours and 6.5 hours respectively. The thicker case of the 80GB iPod allows for a bigger battery, hence the longer life.

If the hardware upgrades to the iPod are less than inspiring, the software improvements offer more. Particularly worth noting is the new Search feature. This tool, sadly only available for music, allows you to scroll through alphanumeric characters using the ClickWheel. By doing this, you can search for, say all the tracks on your iPod by a specific artist, or everything by an artist with the first name 'Jack', or every song with the word 'October' in it, or... you get the picture. It's useful and well implemented, but it would be great if it was available for all the content on your iPod, so, for example, searching for 'Jack' returned music, video, contacts, podcasts, audiobooks and games with the word 'Jack' in

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them. One anomaly that remains in the menu system is that all audio content is referred to as 'music', so podcasts and audiobooks are accessed from the Music menu.

Another new feature in the iPod software that we like is the way that, as you scroll quickly through music tracks, the initial letter of the first track is shown in large, translucent type on the screen. For example, as you move from B to C, the letter 'C' is shown on the screen. This is useful, as when scrolling at speed, it's easy to lose track completely of where you are, although it's no easier to stop quickly once you've identified the track you want.

There's also a Screen Lock function that acts in the same way as a password-protected screensaver and allows you to use the ClickWheel to enter a four-digit combination to unlock the screen. The graphic representation of this feature is very Apple, using the analogy of dials on a safe to show the digits you choose. If you forget your combination, you can reset it the next time you sync.

Games are a key new feature of this range of iPods. In the beginning, games were the iPod's dirty little secret, hidden away deep in the menu system and undocumented. Now, as well as the built-in Brick, Parachute and Music Quiz, you can buy the likes of Pac Man, Tetris and Bejewelled from the iTunes Store. You still can't buy movies or TV shows from the iTunes Store in the UK, however, which is a shame because video, at 640 x 480-pixel resolution, looks great on this iPod.

As with the nano, the iPod comes with a new set of earbuds. These are a definite improvement on the previous earphones, but still not particularly good. And they still leak like a sieve. We'd recommend a pair of good, in-ear headphones, such as the CX 300 from Sennheiser, or if your budget will stretch to it, Shure's E2c or Ultimate Ears' super.fi 3. Also included in the iPod box are a Dock adaptor, USB 2 Dock cable and a slim protective case.

The 30GB and 80GB iPod remain excellent. At the new prices - £189 for the 30GB and £259 for the 80GB - they're good value. The only thing that stops us recommending them unreservedly is the nagging feeling that there's something much more exciting just around the corner. That's not usually a good reason for stalling a purchase, but in this case, the new video iPod is likely to be so radically different, it may just be worth holding off. You could always buy a nano in the meantime.