The coding blog of Alastair Smith, a software developer based in Cambridge, UK. Interested in DevOps, Azure, Kubernetes, .NET Core, and VueJS.
I’m looking for a new iPod. My current 5G 60GB iPod Video has served me well, but it’s getting a bit beat up, and is missing some of the features of the newer models that I consider “killer” features. Features like search. So I’m in the market for a new one. Note that I’m specifically looking at iPods; I’m not interested in other makes, as I have iPod-compatible accessories that I don’t want to have to replace, and all my music is nicely categorised in iTunes, with most “recent” rips (i.e. a year or so old) completed in AAC. I’m not prepared to change media player or faff about with my library to support a new MP3 player, so an iPod it is. However, I’m a bit stuck as to which model to get. They all have pros and cons, and none of them seem to fit my needs as exactly as I’d like.
The iPod Classic is a good model and represents unrivalled value for money, and comes with an unmatched storage capacity of 120GB. It’s an update to my existing model, and so seems to be the most logical model to opt for. I will be able to carry around my entire 35.5GB of music (and counting) and still have more than 80GB to spare for videos, recordings, and god knows what else.
The storage capacity represents a bit of an issue for me, though; it’s simply far too big. I can’t justify buying a model that size: the vast majority of it (and therefore the money paid for it) will go to waste, unused. Even my current 60GB 5G iPod Video suffers 1/3 wastage. The older iPod classic 80GB was much more in line with my needs, and slightly cheaper to boot, but you can’t get it for love nor money now.
This is a lovely bit of kit, and multi-functional too, but really quite pricey. I’d have to opt for the 32GB model (and still not be able to hold everything), and thus shell out a cool £250-300. That’s nearly double the cost of the iPod Classic. And if I can’t fit all my music on it, why not save a packet and go for…
The new Nanos are very slick indeed. They’re incredibly lightweight in comparison with my 5G iPod, and have an impressive amount of storage for their size. They also now support widescreen video! Is there anything Apple can’t do? Oh yeah, hold any more than half of my music on one of these things: 16GB is the limit here. And they cost nearly the same as the iPod Classic.
The problem with not being able to cram on all my music is that I’d have to manage the synchronising of the device manually, and when you’ve got 6412 tracks that gets to be a bit of a headache (doesn’t it?). Maybe I’m just lazy :-) Either way, it’s not something I really want to be doing, so maybe I should just bite the bullet and buy 80GB of space I’m not going to use.