I’ve bought a couple new toys recently, here’s the skinny.

80 gig iPod Classic

The Good

• 80 gigs. Only $50 more than an 8 gig Nano.
• Decent sound, with after market headphones.
• Nice and slim. Fits in a pocket nicely.
• Good battery life. It lasted a complete day at work, plugged into the stereo.

The Bad

• Shitty earbuds included.
• iTunes is a beast. It takes more than an hour to create a playlist of my (admittedly obese) media collection.
• iTunes takes almost 10 hours to sync and upload my (admittedly obese) media collection.
• amarok and gtkpod, are no better. I’m going to fiddle with amarok more though.
• the USB connector on the device itself is, bizarre, at best.
• I can’t shuffle a play list. WTF? I can shuffle all tracks, but not, say, a work friendly playlist.
• No Bluetooth, specifically A2DP. Wires are so last milenium.

Sony Ericsson w580i

The Good

• Great form factor.
• A2DP.
• Excellent sound quality.
• Excellent call quality.
• Decent battery life. Buy a CLA though.
• Expandable memory, I’ve got 4 gigs in it.
• Pedometer.
• Decent enough POP3 Mail Client.

The Bad

• Shitty software.
• The “Rogers Music Player” app launches every time I hang up a call.
• Volume buttons on the side, send a busy tone if you touch them while the phone is ringing. Inconvenient if you have the phone in your pocket.
• The battery cover is a bitch to remove, as well as to attach.
• It’s a little too easy to put the SIM in backwards. People don’t pay attention to the picture under the battery.
• Stupid proprietary headphone jack. Where is the standard 3.5 mm?
• The stock Rogers firmware, as always locks out about 80% of the features. I plan on de-branding it.

LG TU500

The Good

• Awesome sound and build quality, Not what I expected from LG.
• A2DP.
• Rogers Vison.
• XM Satelite Radio.
• Video on Demand.
• Video Conferencing.
• HSPA/UMTS. The hype is real, download speeds are stunning.
• Dual Band WCDMA. A true “World Phone”.

The Bad

• It’s bulky and ugly. I don’t mind, some people do.
• Stupid proprietary headphone jack. Where is the standard 3.5 mm?
• It won’t read my 2 gig Micro SD Cards.
• The stock Rogers firmware, as always locks out about 80% of the features. I plan on de-branding it.