iPod G5: A Portable Hard Drive on the Road

A good use of this fun gadget is to import all contact information and scanned travel documents, including passport, travel insurance card, and plane tickets, so that you always have a back-up should you lose your stuff.

A traveler we know was recently in the United States and realized that he had dropped his passport on public transportation. He immediately printed out a copy of his passport he had scanned and uploaded to his iPod, went to the embassy and got a replacement.

The Bad:

The main drawback about the iPod is that you need accessories for almost everything. Uploading photos straight from your digital camera require an accessory that’s $29 USD.

The hardware is great but iTunes software isn't good at all. Deleting files can be a problem because you can only manage the contents of your iPod when logged into iTunes. Songs you no longer want will have to be cleared in iTunes but getting photos and videos off your iPod is another problem. We were interested in this iPod because we only shoot digital photos on the road and were hoping to use the device as a portable hard drive. You can delete a whole roll, but not individual photos. You’d think that for $299, Apple could have figured something out.

On most other models of iPods, earphone jacks were placed at the bottom of the device, but the iPod Video’s earphone jacks were placed above the screen. Although it doesn’t make a big difference when listening to songs, watching a video with a cable that falls over the screen can be annoying.

For technical specifications, see: www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

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