It's 1 am on June 30th, and I sit alone in the PC Mag Labs...well, not completely alone: I have the iPhone docked right next to me, getting a little more juice after I ran down its battery for six straight hours of testing. I will now start writing my part of the review, but here are some first impressions on the iPod functions...

• Is it worth $500 or $600? Yes. I've never seen a device that does this much work so gracefully and seamlessly--every function seems to flow into the next, and you can never get lost--the home screen is always a click away. The Prada phone is a reportedly lesser beast and costs more...I think people should think of the iPod as a luxury item that delivers.
• The built in speaker does transmit music--rather loudly--but obviously it is mono and sounds bad
• The earphones still suck...but Shure has made an adaptor and Plantronics an entirely new headset...upgrade (if you bought this thing, you can afford it!)
• I had trouble finding the playmodes at first, but they're there--this thing has a completely different interface than the iPod
• Is the absence of the scroll wheel a good thing? Well, the wheel is one of the best design buttons ever made...but this is much more enjoyable to use. The wheel may have been the most convenient design on a player, but this matches the convenience with beautiful graphics and even easier navigation
• The YouTube function is surprisingly enjoyable--I watched a shark video and then emailed it's link to Dan Costa...effortlessly. I have yet to read a manual.
• Is this the best iPod ever made? I'll just say this: it makes the older iPods look like a much earlier link on the evolutionary chain...we just went from caveman to cyborg.