IPod Photo: Attributes and accessories

Playlist - Much of the initial coverage of the new iPod Photo has understandably focused on its photo functionality (which I can tell you from firsthand experience is quite cool). But for many users, other details -- hardware changes, tech specs, and accessory compatibility -- are also important. Read on for some tech tidbits and compatibility notes.

Reconcilable Differences

If you're wondering about the hardware differences between the current 4G (Click Wheel) iPods and the iPod Photo, here's the skinny: The most obvious difference is the iPod Photo's color screen. Although it's the same size as the standard iPod's screen (2 in.), it displays 65,536 colors in all their backlit glory. And it's surprisingly clear and bright, making it easy to view photos on the iPod -- and even to differentiate between them when in browse mode (which shows thumbnails of the photos in an album in a 5 x 5 grid).

Another major change is that the new iPod Photo extends battery life to up to 15 hours, as compared to 12 hours for 4G iPods and 8 hours for the iPod mini. Oddly enough, the iPod Photo does this while reducing the size of the built-in memory buffer: According to Apple's Tech Specs page, the 4G iPod provides "up to 25 minutes" of skip protection, whereas the iPod Photo provides only 17 minutes. A longer skip protection time usually means a larger memory buffer, which means the iPod can store more music in the buffer, which means it has to spin up the hard drive less frequently. In other words, more skip protection usually also means longer battery life. When you also consider the color screen, which should require more power, it's especially surprising that the iPod Photo offers longer battery life. Our upcoming full review will let you know how realistic that estimate is.

(Apple estimates up to 5 hours of battery life when continuously displaying photo slideshows with music, which, as Steve Jobs said during Tuesday's iPod event, is longer than most of your friends will be willing to watch. And as my colleague -- and PlaylistMag editor in chief -- Christopher Breen noted on Tuesday, the iPod Photo's battery takes about an hour longer to fully charge than the 4G models: five hours vs. four.)


The other significant, though not obvious, difference is that the iPod Photo uses a special headphone jack that can also output video. It does this via a multipurpose AV cable that breaks out into three RCA connectors: composite video and left/right audio.