Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Unlike a lot of reviewers who post reviews on a product they've never seen or held (Apple Stores were told they wouldn't get theirs until the end of October--per Charlotte NC store) ----- I actually have one. I ordered mine on Oct 12, and it arrived Oct 20. I of course ordered the 60GB device. It was easy to swap out my old 40 GB device with this new one. I'd previously installed the new iTunes and the iPod software version 10-12-05 that I'd downloaded. It was plug in, register, and download. (And I had to swap cables on my dock***.) Some observations: The screen is very bright when you turn the backlight on and leave it on, it's very dim if you don't (probably how they get the stated 20 hour battery life). ***No more Firewire connections. I was sad to see that, as the Firewire connection saved me from getting a new USB hub. The Holy Grail is video here...however, converting it to iPod standards isn't easy. I have a lot of DiVX video, to which the QuickTime Converter isn't up to recognizing, much less converting. Forget about 3rd party converters that you already own, it seems the iPod only wants Apple-converted video. But rest assured, there are software developers frantically scrambling to solve this. I have a couple of beta converters I found, but with very mixed results. I'd give it a couple of weeks then good software will be available for converting video to the iPod. The sound is as good as ever, no worries there. It has the same width and height as my 40GB iPod, so your cases should fit nicely, and maybe a similar thickness to the old 10/20 GB iPods. It fits in my auto transmitter/charger, but I have to slightly angle it back as I'm inserting it to hit the dock squarely. All in all, the video situation was disappointing, but with lots of money at stake, it will get worked out by all these 3rd party developers. I did manage to get a couple very short preexisting QuickTime videos converted successfully to the iPod standard, so I know it DOES play video - the problem is just the conversion process. Not necessarily Apple's fault, except that their video standard is maybe a little too rigid.