Should photographers care about the iPod photo?

We recently had a chance to look at the new iPod photo, introduced by Apple last year and updated last week in 30GB and 60GB models. To be honest, we weren't impressed.

Before we go into the details, let's agree on some rules of engagement. We're reviewing the iPod photo, shown in Figure A, here in Connected Photographer Magazine because the product is now photo-related. So we're not really reviewing it as a music player, but as an accessory for a photographer. And as a photographer's accessory, the iPod photo is relatively uninteresting.

By the way, when the original iPod Photo was introduced, Apple capitalized the "P" in Photo. But with the release of the newer models last week, the "P" was demoted to a lower-case "p" -- which may be a subtle reflection of how mediocre the photo features are for this device.

What makes the iPod photo a photo device?

When Apple added a color screen to their venerable iPod design, someone over there had the bright marketing idea to claim an added media domain for the product: photography. After all, the reasoning went, if the device has a color display, it can display pictures. And if it can display pictures in addition to playing music, it's now a media device, right?

Well, not so much.

The iPod photo's LCD screen is all of two inches in size and can only display 220 x 176 pixels. By contrast, most Pocket PCs display 240 x 320 pixels, most Palm OS devices have 320x320 display, and the new Dell x50v has a 640x480 display. As you can see in Figure B, the iPod photo's display size is very, very disappointing compared to other handheld device displays.

While we're talking disappointing, we turn our attention to another aspect of the iPod photo's display: the color depth. Color depth refers to the amount of color a particular device can show. Typically, displays that allow 8-bits per pixel can only show up to 256 colors. Displays like the iPod photo that can display 16-bits per pixel can only show about 65,000 colors per pixel, and your PC's display can display more than 16.7 million colors for each pixel.

While 16-bit color is tolerable for a handheld display, this device is specifically named the iPod photo, so one would assume it would display images in excellent fidelity. This device does not. 16-bit images can display photos, but the subtle variations of color (like skin tones, for example), are lost to this display. Of course, since you're only able to see a very small picture anyway, there's no real great loss.

So how do we get our photos into the iPod photo?

If you could pack your iPod photo into your camera case and use its 30GB or 60GB hard drive to offload photos from your digital camera's flash card, the device might have more utility. To be fair, if you choose to purchase a $49.95 Belkin Digital Camera Link or a $69.96 Belkin iPod Media Reader, both boxes about the size of the iPod itself, you can move images from your camera to your iPod. Apple also claims to have a device that'll do this, but it's not available as of this review.

The thing is, you're already spending either $349 or $449 for the iPod photo itself. If you want to read images into the device from your camera, you're increasing the price. Worse, you've got an added bulky interface box to lug along as well.

You can also get your images into your iPod photo from your desktop, but what's the point? If you've got access to your desktop to offload images from your camera, you're not going to need the low-resolution, tiny screen of the iPod photo.

Does the iPod photo do any tricks?

Well, of course, the iPod photo is an iPod, so it'll play your podcasts, audio books, and music. While the iPod interface itself is now long in the tooth and somewhat clunky, it is among the best of breed as an audio player.

One interesting thing you can do with your iPod photo is torture your friends and co-workers with pictures of your family vacation. The iPod photo comes with an AV cable that allows you to plug your iPod into your TV's video input, and display a slide show on your TV.

This is actually a truly creative option that we'd love to see in other PDAs. While displaying vacation pictures is our recipe for torture, if you could download, say, a PowerPoint presentation to your iPod photo, you could then display it on any TV with no other hardware. This is a great tool for sales folks and anyone who needs to make a presentation. In fact, those industrious dudes at Engadget wrote a tutorial (at http://www.engadget.com/entry/2872212676610755/) for doing just that.

Sometimes we wish we could take two devices and smush them together. The iPod photo has a big hard drive and the nice video out option and the Dell x50v has everything else: a wonderfully big display, built-in slots for both Compact Flash and SD cards, Bluetooth and even WiFi. Combine those features and you would have the ultimate photographer's accessory. Dell, are you listening?

Should you buy this iPod model? If you're buying an iPod because you want the audio features, you might as well pick up an iPod photo simply because of the color screen. But if you're thinking about using the iPod photo's photo features, the likelyhood is you're wasting your money. Looking at the device primarily from the photographer's point of view, we have to give the iPod photo a less-than-vivid 3 out of 5.