Product impressions and UK shipping experience

Question

Shipping speed:
Ordered my 60GB white engraved 5G on 13/10 which was shipped on 21/10 and arrived to me in the UK on 25/10 so a 12-day experience from start to finish. This was better than I expected due to the delay that I thought the engraving would cause.
Product impressions:
I ordered the 5G despite that fact that I was sceptical on the practicality and usefulness of video on a small 2.5-inch screen. I went ahead with the order only because one of the family iPods needed an upgrade and frankly of the products that Jobs had presented together with the 5G all of which whetted my appetite, 5G was the only one I could purchase as I already have an G5 iMac and a separate iSight.
Given that I would be upgrading myself from the iPod Photo and not being too enthusiastic in general about portable video, it was going to be very hard for me to be impressed.
Yesterday when the product came and I turned it on I immediately observed that the screen felt considerably larger than iPod Photo’s, but also it is much brighter and the font used is more pleasing to the eye. Additionally whilst remaining heavy as before (perhaps even slightly heavier I thought not having seen the official stats), it is impressively thinner compared to the 60GB iPod Photo. Additionally after seeing the screen quality and the tasteful design of the new and old extras, my initial impression of it was very positive but I had to test the video quality to reach a definitive verdict.
Over the past weekend I had transferred some video content onto iTunes in anticipation of the arrival of the 5G. I used ffmpegX and Handbrake for this purpose. There were some glitches along the way but overall the conversions went reasonably smooth. By the way I can also confirm that the ripping instructions provided for Handbrake works like a charm.
After connecting the 5G to my G5 and acquainting it with its new master iPhoto, using the USB 2.0 connection I manually transferred files across to my new iPod. Pausing momentarily here to comment on the USB 2.0 vs. Firewire connection speed issue, I haven’t noticed any material difference in speed between the USB 2.0 transfers and the Firewire transfers that I had been using for iPod Photo. If there is a difference it is certainly not prohibitively marked. So for me at least the lack of Firewire connection is not going to be an issue.
After uploading the videos and checking them one by one, I must admit I was blown away by the quality of the screen, its brightness, the level of detail it can show, the realism of the colours and the feasibility of the overall portable viewing experience. Especially on material where you are familiar with the characters, in my humble opinion it is a perfectly acceptable way of watching stuff on the go or otherwise. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I would prefer the iPod over my TV when I’m at home but I could certainly see myself retiring to bed with the iPod from time to time even when I’m at home. The sound quality obtained from the encoding process was excellent as well.
If you want to have an idea before you buy the 5G as to how the video looks like on the iPod, after you load your material up onto your iTunes, simply play with the screen size to make it the same size as the 2.5 inch 4:3 format screen on the iPod, get really close to your computer screen and see if you can live with this size and the amount of detail it is capable of showing. In my case with such high quality a display (on the 5G), I know I can even though I had serious doubts even at the time of my order.
The quality of the image on the iPod is in my opinion very nearly as good as its quality on the computer screen so a test as above would enable you to make a pretty accurate assessment I thought. My only previous portable gadget video experience with a PSP was not as reassuring despite the PSP’s considerably larger screen (I must give full credit to PSP on photo and gaming display situations though). On th

Answer 1

Thanks. Here is the rest of the review that got cut-off:
... On the 5G I haven’t yet uploaded any photos but with moving images displaying so well, I have no doubt the quality will be brilliant.
Lastly concerning the case (actually a pouch rather) that comes with the 5G, it is a nice to have but for most people including myself who love their gadgets something more sturdy, offering better protection is required. Also I thought the pouch was a little tighter than what it needs to be for the 60GB. It could have been designed to be a little looser without causing the gadget fall out. It is a very light grey in colour so it will pick up and show dirt very easily I think. So in my opinion its definitely worth getting extra protection.
Overall I’m very pleased with my purchase. It is a worthy upgrade in my opinion even from a 60GB iPod Photo if you can put the retiring iPod Photo to good use. From any older generation iPod it would be a worthy upgrade under all circumstances except financial perhaps.
One suggestion I have for the next version is (in addition to larger memory capacity as a single 1.5hr movie takes up nearly 0.6GB) enlarging the screen even further by using a portrait shape rather than the current landscape mode making use of the idle real estate that remains on the front of the machine as a result of the now smaller yet highly effective nano-style wheel.
More tests to come including connection to a big screen TV. I will come back to tell you about them to extent I have anything of importance to say.