On the fence about a Classic? Look here.

[Andrew99]

(I'm a long time reader, first time poster so bear with me here)

Well, I just got my classic delivered today, and I thought I would share my experience with it for people who are still deciding whether or not to get one. First of all I bought a black 80 gig from the apple online store to replace my aging 1st gen mini (2 hours of battery just wasn't cutting it).

I was deciding between the 8gb touch and the 80gb classic. I went for the classic for a few reasons.

1. The storage space, this is the most obvious. Although i only have 4gigs of music, I have 15 gigs of music and 2 gigs of photos. I loved to be able to listen to whatever I felt like when I had all my music on my mini. I wanted to be able to do this with all my movies and photos as well.

2. Although the wifi on the touch is very cool, it would just not be practical for me. I have a psp which also has an internet browser. I rarely use it because there are very few places which have free wifi access. I end up only using it at home, which defeats the purpose. I know for some people this might be a different story depending on where you live etc.

3. The screen on the touch is huge and its great for watching movies, but for me personally I would rather have all my movies with me and put up with a smaller screen.

I can this of a few more points for and against the classic but I'll move on....

I ordered the classic a few days after I came out, before all the talk of crashing, lagging screens etc. I was getting very nervous when some of the reports started to some in. Especially because I was getting engraving, making it unreturnable. However now that I have it in my hand I feel a lot better.

As far as the lagging menus go, it is noticeable, but much less that I thought. And in my opinion its a non-issue. The menu's scroll very smoothly, at par with my mini. The only time I do notice lag is when switching from a plain menu such as song to a more graphically intensive like the main menu. Even here the delay ranges from only a couple seconds to instantly.

Many people have said the click wheel seems unresponsive. I don't have much to compare it to, but I think it is just a matter of getting used to it. Compared to my mini it takes a tiny bit more pressure, but after a few minutes I didn't notice a difference.

The photos are smooth, some people have had problems with this but I haven't.

I really like the split screen men, especially for photos, it feels like the menu is skimming over them.

Cover flow is still quite laggy and I wouldn't say its useful right now. I don't use it for my music anyways so for me its not a big deal.

The lack of video out is a bummer, i might try to get a dock off ebay but for now i'll have t put up with it.

I love having all that storage space, it feels great load it with as much media as you can and still have lots of space left over.

The games are a huge improvement as well. No more being 15 minutes into a game solitaire only to press the menu button and have it reset!

All in all I would defiantly recommend it and I can't wait to get some use out of it. The touch vs. classic dilemma will be different for everybody, and for me I know I made the right choice.

Any thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

[Cody13]

I bought an 80GB Classic on Friday and love it so far. The only issue I've had was that it wasn't being detected by my computer but that was fixed quickly. I don't think it was the iPod's fault anyway.

Maybe it is because I've never owned an iPod of any kind before this that I don't mind/notice the lagging menus, scroll wheel, etc. They seem fine to me.

[mini_me2]

Very similar story to mine, actually. I'm coming from a 1G Mini with a dying battery as well, and ended up going with the 80GB Classic for many of the same reasons. While 8GB on the Touch might be adequate for my music, when you factor in all of my DVDs (most of which I have yet to rip) and photos, 8 gigs just doesn't cut it. In the end, I'm very happy with my Classic. Love the interface, and there just isn't an MP3 player that gives you that much for that little money.

Having more capacity on my iPod than free space on my PC is always a good feeling, too

[paranoidxe]

Click wheel unresponsive? If anything it seems more sensitive.

[css1323]

The first days after it came out, I checked out Best Buy to see if they had the model I wanted which was the 160GB one. They told me they only had the 80GB version and would expect more later that week.

As soon as I came back a few days later, they had it in stock. Before buying, I only checked out the display model for just a few moments before deciding to buy it. I was really confident in the iPod Classic, so I bought it immediately.

I couldn't wait to get back home to load up the music. The iPod Classic does feel like a strong player with a few weaknesses here and there. I think when people starting reporting in their problems, it was a bit psychological as well. Instead of worrying about the whole Cover Flow experience and other bugs, I totally forgot the way I used my older iPods. It didn't have any of those fancy features, but I still managed.

[paranoidxe]

Originally Posted by css1323

The first days after it came out, I checked out Best Buy to see if they had the model I wanted which was the 160GB one. They told me they only had the 80GB version and would expect more later that week.

As soon as I came back a few days later, they had it in stock. Before buying, I only checked out the display model for just a few moments before deciding to buy it. I was really confident in the iPod Classic, so I bought it immediately.

I couldn't wait to get back home to load up the music. The iPod Classic does feel like a strong player with a few weaknesses here and there. I think when people starting reporting in their problems, it was a bit psychological as well. Instead of worrying about the whole Cover Flow experience and other bugs, I totally forgot the way I used my older iPods. It didn't have any of those fancy features, but I still managed.

Ironically around here it seems like the 80GB is the hard one to find, Best Buy didn't have any 80GB in stock, but about 6 160GB models...Walmart was out of stock on the 80GB model as well but had 3 160GB models left.

[hexonxonx]

I ordered a 160 GB Classic on Sunday afternoon, it shipped early afternoon on Monday and I will have it on Wednesday.

It's very good to hear that people are happy with the new Classic iPods. I currently use a 30GB iPod Photo and a iPhone.

I have been purchasing allot of videos from itunes lately and it will be nice to have all of that plus all of my 32GB of music on there and still have all kinds of room for future stuff.

On my iPhone, I always leave about 2GB free for videos because I am always so impressed with the quality of that screen and the quality of the downloads on iTunes is excellent making my iPhones screen extremely fun to view.

On a side note, I just discovered that after two and a half years of owning my iPod Photo, that it came with 4 games on it! I probably knew that but forgot about it along time ago because I just grabbed it occasionally to play in the car.

Anyways, can't wait to load up the new Classic silver when it gets here!

[cleandemon]

I just thought I'd add some more positive reaction to the classic.

For me, the 160GB capacity is a god-send due to my 120GBish library.

I've had more music on my PC than space on my iPod since early on in my ownership of a 4G 40GB and then all through my 5.5G 80GB I've had to mess about with deciding whether newly imported music should go on my iPod, and if so, what it should replace. Finally, now I can just do things the easy way.

As for the classic, itself it's all good so far. I've had no problems with crashes or freezing. The menus do exhibit a small amount of lag, but I'm used to it now and the overall experience is much better. Syncing is rather slow with a large library, but that seems to be inevitable. It was much quicker, when I first got the classic and only had put a small amount of music on it, so the size of the library must have an impact.

The other big deal for me is the sound. I listen to my iPods in the car through an auxillary input to the head unit and the sound on the classic is noticeably different from the 5.5G. It's a bit quieter, but much clearer and more dynamic.

I'm very pleased with it.

[Trax]

2. Although the wifi on the touch is very cool, it would just not be practical for me. I have a psp which also has an internet browser. I rarely use it because there are very few places which have free wifi access. I end up only using it at home, which defeats the purpose. I know for some people this might be a different story depending on where you live etc.

I've seen comparison of PSP and iPhone web browsing speed. The iPhone won in the end and the Safari shows the nonscaled down version making it better. I'm actually on the fence with iPod Touch or iPhone.

[hexonxonx]

Originally Posted by Trax

I've seen comparison of PSP and iPhone web browsing speed. The iPhone won in the end and the Safari shows the nonscaled down version making it better. I'm actually on the fence with iPod Touch or iPhone.

As far as the iPod portion of the Touch is concerned, it is practically identical to the iPod on the iPhone. You can delete videos by sliding a finger across one in the list. They group by type and show such as TV shows and movies.

Steve said on the UK media event that the iPod Touch was training wheels for the iPhone. Didn't sound like he was very thrilled with the Touch at all. The people wanted it so it was thrown at them.

[ahMEmon]

I've had my 160 gig iPod classic for almost a week now and can easily say that I am quite pleased with my purchase. Yes it had frozen on me and Yes it's a bit laggy, but so were the 5.5 G iPods before the firmware updates. The 1.1 update seems to have improved it's responsiveness, and eliminated most (not all) of the lag.

I also love the fact that NOW my iPod can work with playlist folders, a feature they should have added to the iPod a long time ago.

Now I have an iPod that can hold my entire 80 gig music library PLUS a good portion of the TV shows I record with my eyetv 200 unit. The loss of direct video output kinda sucks but I dont really mind, I guess I'll try to find a cheap universal dock off cragslist or ebay.

Also, I'd like to mention that the sound from this iPod is CLEEAAN! If there is a hiss, I certainly cannot hear it with my Sennheiser CX300 earbuds!

I'd give this iPod 4.25 out of 5 stars.

[Jake Mongoose]

My 4th gen 40GB iPod died a few weeks ago and I picked up the 160GB Classic the other day and I'm amazed at the difference in the sound quality. It is like night and day, the Classic sounds so much better. I've not had any real problems with it so far. It does seem to be a little laggy at times, but that may be due to the HD being four times the size of the 4th gen. Battery life is awesome, I listen all day long and the meter barely budges.

[nick.post]

I gotta tell you, I'm really on the fence on this one.

Why I'd definately go with the classic:
- same price as 5.5 with nearly triple the space.
- smaller, less scratchy

Why I'd definately not go with the classic:
- Seems apple has locked out all third party music loaders and I find iTunes to be totally devoid of features I was used to in Rio Music Manager (as old as that fossil is) and Mediamonkey. I just want an album view where I can click on the name of and album and say to send it. I have 40 gig of music, but there are so many little fragments, I don't want them on the classic. Not even compilations until they get the new firmware out, and if and only if they fix that.

Other stuff I don't know for:
- Can't disable coverflow or album art stuff. Granted, I think album covers are nice looking. But I'm not going to be staring at the screen while I'm listening. I want it turned off and I could on any other iPod (or not have the feature at all). Fix the firmware issue, again.
- With the new db issues, might not work in built in car itunes docks, or those swank lil speaker things. I don't have a ipod cradle in my car, but I'll be changing cars, and as goofy as it sounds, integration is a factor. I haaate my FM transmitter. I live in a very RF conspitated town, obviously. Certain areas freak out things.

Plus, I'm sure the Zune will drop below $100 before Xmas. Snerk.

[Pearson]

Originally Posted by paranoidxe

Ironically around here it seems like the 80GB is the hard one to find, Best Buy didn't have any 80GB in stock, but about 6 160GB models...Walmart was out of stock on the 80GB model as well but had 3 160GB models left.

My local Best Buy was the opposite, they only had the 80GB Silver Classic and not any in black or any 160GB iPods. Maybe it had to do with geographic location to distribution centers and to see which model was more in demand.

[css1323]

Hey Nick, do you have any of the old Rio players then? I say this because you are obviously using RMM.

I think if you've already built a collection full of DRMed music (WMA), then you should really look elsewhere. iTunes does have its problems, but you can't be too ambitious when you're using it. Just create your playlists, drag whatever you need here and there, but the program itself is just a small hurdle towards bliss.

Right now I'm painstakingly re-adding my playlists of thousands of tracks, one track at a time. I know it's maddening, but I know that it will all be worth it in the end. I guess what I'm trying to get it is that you have to pay a small price to be able to attain a bigger HD and updated interface. To me, that kind of reinforcement helps me forget the other headaches.