A Better iPod

Apple's new iPod Photo is a new creature, adding brilliant color photos to the popular music player. The pictures are great, but with its increased storage, longer battery-life and sharp, 65,000-color display, it's a much better music player as well.

I tested the iPod Photo on both a PC and Mac Powerbook. On both systems, the setup processes were pretty much identical and straightforward: Install the software, connect the iPod and within five minutes you are synchronizing media.

Viewing photos on the iPod couldn't be easier. The scroll wheel makes navigation fast, simple, and intuitive. After selecting an album, photos are displayed by thumbnail, 25 per page. There are also different viewing options. You can click on any picture to see it full screen. Continue browsing by using the scroll wheel or customize your own slide show by choosing transitions and music. You can view photos on the iPod, or on any standard TV with the included cable.

The iPod Photo comes in two models: the 40-gigabyte model, which costs $499 and the 60-gigabyte model, which costs $599. Depending on capacity, the new iPod can store up to 10,000 songs or 25,000 photos, which are all easily synchronized using the new 4.7 release of Apple iTunes which now controls not only music synchronization but also photos.