Being the ultimate out of control gadget geek that I am I bought one of the new iPods. I’ve been using it for about a month now and thought I’d offer a few observations.

The buttons are way too sensitive. I find that I have to use the hold button all the time. This is a pain in the arse. The buttons are so sensitive that often just the act of trying to move my fingers to the hold button triggers a reaction and I jump a song or pause the song. This too is a pain in the arse.

Like others using the new iPod I certain mp3s will, halfway through a song, skip ahead to the next song. This is a pain in the arse.

The Clock with an alarm feature kicks arse. The new notes feature also kicks arse.The glow buttons kick arse. The new firewire cable kicks arse because it’s smaller, lighter, easier to use. Lastly, it’s lighter and smaller which as you can guess, kicks arse.

Would I have sold my Gen1 5GB iPod and upgraded to this one had I been aware of the faults beforehand. I don’t think so. The truth is 5GB was enough hard drive space and the benefits of the new iPod do not outweigh the negatives. Perhaps a future firmware upgrade will do the trick?