A Weekend in London
Just spent the weekend in London sorting some stuff out before I move in to the new house in a fortnight's time.
On the house, we've really got a good-un down there. Three storeys high and located on Lillie Road, Fulham near West Brompton tube station. It's a stones throw away from the Earls Court Exhibition Centre and 25 minute's walk from Imperial. There is plenty of stuff around in the area too. A number of pubs in the immediate area as well as take-aways, cafes and shops. North End Road isn't that far for places like Iceland, HMV and all that. Fulham Broadway is not much further for cinemas, restaurants and the like.
I went for a Vietnamese meal with a housemate and his father. My first try at this cuisine, though I found it very similar to Chinese food but with just a bit of Thai influence. Maybe that is just the British 'take' on Vietnamese food, as is the case normally. After which the few of us who were in the house went to South Kensington to the Zetland Arms pub. This decision was met with some argument as the pub was 20 minutes away and expensive. Yet they do a good pint of Abbot Ale in there. We ended up in Covent Garden with a bunch of Americans that Charlie's friend Tim had found. Events led to us splitting with them and we attempted to get a bus home. The bus driver was a bit of a dick-head and ended up stopping the bus at South Kensington to have an argument with a passenger. We walked the rest of the way home, grabbing a burger on the way. This is what I've been missing over summer, freedom and just having fun rather than being at home or work.
Anyway, I also managed to sneak into the Apple Store on Saturday. I ended up with one of these:
Yes that is a 2GigaByte black iPod nano. £128 with the Higher Education discount. It is without doubt the coolest iPod Apple have made to date, if not the coolest thing they have ever made. It's small (see my latest Flickr photos) for more size-comparisons. As a flash-memory-drive thing it is great, and good value. The last check I did on Ebuyer.com put 2GB USB drives at £100-120, so getting a stylish one that is also an MP3 player...what beats it?
The colour screen is fab and the nano has all the features of a full iPod photo it would seem. So it's a great replacement for the Mini and was the only logical way forward really.
iTunes 5 did well filling it up. As I have more than 2GB of music, iTunes found my favourite artists by total songs, play count and ratings etc*, then puts a few of their albums on it up to 2GB.
The only problems so far are that it scratches too damn easily. I put it in my pocket with my Nokia 6230 for 30 minutes, took it out and it appeared the nano had lost the fight with several light scratches on the screen and black bodywork. Shame, but I'll invest in some of these polish/scratch remover things.
Another thing is they don't give you the wall-plug power brick like they did on the older iPods. Instead you charge via USB 2.0. You can buy one from the Apple store, and existing ones do work (I charged my nano using my old 3G iPod's charger). Still, if this was all because they wanted to put it in a smaller box, then shame on you Apple.
In short:
It's small, it's good value, it looks amazing, it sounds amazing, and it's an iPod.
Go figure, it's great.
* At least I assume this is what it did
Now Playing in iTunes: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles
On the house, we've really got a good-un down there. Three storeys high and located on Lillie Road, Fulham near West Brompton tube station. It's a stones throw away from the Earls Court Exhibition Centre and 25 minute's walk from Imperial. There is plenty of stuff around in the area too. A number of pubs in the immediate area as well as take-aways, cafes and shops. North End Road isn't that far for places like Iceland, HMV and all that. Fulham Broadway is not much further for cinemas, restaurants and the like.
I went for a Vietnamese meal with a housemate and his father. My first try at this cuisine, though I found it very similar to Chinese food but with just a bit of Thai influence. Maybe that is just the British 'take' on Vietnamese food, as is the case normally. After which the few of us who were in the house went to South Kensington to the Zetland Arms pub. This decision was met with some argument as the pub was 20 minutes away and expensive. Yet they do a good pint of Abbot Ale in there. We ended up in Covent Garden with a bunch of Americans that Charlie's friend Tim had found. Events led to us splitting with them and we attempted to get a bus home. The bus driver was a bit of a dick-head and ended up stopping the bus at South Kensington to have an argument with a passenger. We walked the rest of the way home, grabbing a burger on the way. This is what I've been missing over summer, freedom and just having fun rather than being at home or work.
Anyway, I also managed to sneak into the Apple Store on Saturday. I ended up with one of these:
Yes that is a 2GigaByte black iPod nano. £128 with the Higher Education discount. It is without doubt the coolest iPod Apple have made to date, if not the coolest thing they have ever made. It's small (see my latest Flickr photos) for more size-comparisons. As a flash-memory-drive thing it is great, and good value. The last check I did on Ebuyer.com put 2GB USB drives at £100-120, so getting a stylish one that is also an MP3 player...what beats it?
The colour screen is fab and the nano has all the features of a full iPod photo it would seem. So it's a great replacement for the Mini and was the only logical way forward really.
iTunes 5 did well filling it up. As I have more than 2GB of music, iTunes found my favourite artists by total songs, play count and ratings etc*, then puts a few of their albums on it up to 2GB.
The only problems so far are that it scratches too damn easily. I put it in my pocket with my Nokia 6230 for 30 minutes, took it out and it appeared the nano had lost the fight with several light scratches on the screen and black bodywork. Shame, but I'll invest in some of these polish/scratch remover things.
Another thing is they don't give you the wall-plug power brick like they did on the older iPods. Instead you charge via USB 2.0. You can buy one from the Apple store, and existing ones do work (I charged my nano using my old 3G iPod's charger). Still, if this was all because they wanted to put it in a smaller box, then shame on you Apple.
In short:
It's small, it's good value, it looks amazing, it sounds amazing, and it's an iPod.
Go figure, it's great.
* At least I assume this is what it did
Now Playing in iTunes: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles
posted by Jon at 10:29 pm
2 Comments:
Fantastic, I have a place to crash in London now... ;)
Always welcome Paul. Friend price of £30 per night ;-)
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