Average User Rating: 80% (155 Reviews)
5 / 5	Wonderful! Griesmayer (Wien, Österreich) - 13 September 2007 I am at a loss of words. This is truly the best bang for your buck from the entire iPod range. 80GB for 159£? Apple must be kidding us! The 30GB video iPod (5th generation) was that "costly" just a month ago! And now, they offer a device with 3x the storage capacity and overall just better: So the predecessor was faulty and these were the negative feedback it received: -battery life too short -too little storage -screen isn't bright and vivid enough -the display menu is boring compared to the iPhone -it's fat! -too costly!!! -(and most of all) the surface scratches way too easily! Apple fixed ALL of that through the release of the iPod Classic: -24h battery life (5h for video) -storage now extended to 80 or 160 GB -screen now brighter and clearer -iPhone's unique Coverflow is adapted to the new iPod Classic, as well as the "album cover art drift" and search function -it's thinner now! -much cheaper for what you get! -and last but certainly not least: the aluminium finish is ideal to make your iPod immune to scratches! One important feature is the fact that with 80GB, you can make backups of all your personal data on your Pc, as well as upload almost all of the songs, photos and videos you possess without having to think about GB-shortage. The iPod nano and iPod touch are also quite seductive, but in the end, it's the Giga Bytes that count. And the fact that you get 80GB for 159£, while you have to pay 269£ for only 16GB is insane! So let me get this straight: you pay EXTRA money AND receive less GBs? And what for? Touch-screen and Wifi? Oh please. It'll turn out to be a huge ripoff after you've gotten used to the cool features. So I say - stick with the classic and you won't regret it!... Read Full Review »
4 / 5	It's an MP3 player M. C. Cresswell - 24 October 2007 Having put off buying an iPod for nearly 4 years, and being one of its most vocal opponents, I finally succumbed and picked this model up. Reasons were numerous and not that relevant to a review, so here goes the highs and lows IMHO. The iPod is handsome, it works well and it has a great user interface. A lot of thought has been put into making it extremely easy to use and there are some very sweet and fluffy (and utterly useless) features like Cover Flow and the inbuilt games which test your knowledge of your own music collection. My only problem with it is that since the clickwheel operates both volume control and music selection, you can't do both at the same time. No biggy but occasionally annoying. The battery has been enhanced beyond description, and with relatively heavy use I'm currently charging it once a week. The screen definition is very impressive for album art, photos and videos. Ultimately of course it's all about the music, and the sound pumped out by those tacky white plastic phones that everyone hates is more than adequate. I find it a bit lacking in brightness compared with other players, but perhaps it's the headphones. The bass is meaty, while mid-tones are rich. It's a little on the quiet side but that's probably not a bad thing. One of the major things putting me off getting an iPod at all was its reliance on iTunes. I'd always viewed this as unnecessary, cumbersome and slightly sinister. Unlike Marmite (I was expecting to hate iTunes with a passion) I'm actually quite ambivalent. I had to spend a fair few hours tidying up my tracks on it, importing album artwork and the like, all to do something which I was doing perfectly well before and with no additional effort using Windows Explorer. Anyone who tells you iTunes is fantastic is either delusional or rather easily pleased, but it's not as offensive as I'd led myself to believe and you quickly get used to its many foibles and quirks. Ultimately the iPod is an attractive, efficient player. Converting to the "dark side" hasn't transformed my existence on this planet, though it has made it a little more tuneful. I've used other makes of player in the past - iRiver, Samsung - all of which are edgier, more feature-packed and, when push comes to shove, better pieces of kit. Though I for one am enjoying, for once, the knowledge that I can walk into any store and buy accessories for days, and that I have the might of Apple behind my product. Ambivalence aside, a well deserved 4 stars. ... Read Full Review »
5 / 5	Worth the money Poet Laureate - 10 November 2007 After reading reviews on the Ipod Classic and the dodgy sound I was reluctant to fork out the money to get something that wasn't up to par. Anyway after about 30 minutes reading reviews I decided to bite the bullet and buy one. I was intending to only get the Nano 8GB version but the price difference between that and the classic 80GB was (to me ) worth it so I got the 80GB classic. I have to agree with the posters about the sound, I was pretty dissapointed until I swapped ear phones and plugged in my old creative MP3 player ones and it sounded excellent (Pink Floyd The Wall is a great sound tester)I could hear every strum of the guitar and every note as clear as a bell. Anyway I noticed the only difference between the Ipod earphones and the creative ones (apart from the colour)were the foam caps over the ear piece so I found an pair of foam ear phone caps that came with my nokia phone, I put them over the white Ipod ear phones plugged them back into the Ipod and the sound was a 100 percent improvement. I am getting some sennheiser 300x earphones today so the sound should be even better if that is possible. My only complaint is that the volume is not high enough,(this does not apply to everyday situations though). I work in construction, so when I am on the building site and some one is using a chop saw or a grinder nearby it is difficult to hear the music. I am hoping that the sennheiser earphones will remedy this though because they fit right down in your ear canal and I have read that they cut out a lot of ambient noise. The screen is great too for viewing photos, lovely colour and clarity, I havent tried the video yet though because I havent got any MP4 videos and I cant be bothered decoding any. I would like Apple to bring out a gizmo that I can put a memory card into and download photos from a memory card straight into the Ipod for when I am out photographing, preferablly one that will view RAW images. To summarize, This is a great buy if you like fantastic sounding music, put foam caps over the original Ipod eraphones or buy new ones, preferably the ones that fit right into your ear to cut out loud ambient noise. This is the best thing I have bought for a long time.... Read Full Review »
5 / 5	absolutely no problems, why has everyone else?? tqfan (scotland) - 18 March 2008 i bought my first ipod in july 2004, 20gb classic, and it was great, no problems with it. just before christmas (2007) it was lasting for around 3 hours, the battery had seen better days, so i started to look at a new ipod. all the bad reviews on here kept putting me off, but i decided to buy one 3 weeks ago, as my other was now down to 2 hours and was definitely needing replaced. i've no idea why i waited, no idea why i took these bad reviews into account, because the 80gb classic is GREAT! i've had it for 2 weeks now, it was updated with songs the first day i got it, took around 20 minutes to get the thousands of songs on it, and since then it's only been updated another once, lasting about 2 minutes. i DIDN'T charge it when i got it, as the battery was full, so the battery has lasted THAT long! i had to charge it last night, as it was down to a red bar, so it wasn't fully dead. i use it for 3/4 hours per day, sometimes longer, so i'm very impressed that i got 2 weeks worth out of one charge. even my other one didn't last that long!! i also like the colour screen, my other doesn't have that. it's crisp and clean and looks a lot better. not had problems with cover flow either, it works fine. also not had any problems with the volume. it's clearly audible on the lowest setting, and on highest i nearly blew my eardrums. also noticed there is a volume limit in the settings, is this maybe why so many people have problems with low volume?!? i'm also not using the apple ipod earphones, i'm using phillips. also liking the case colour. i thought it might have been a 'shiny' case like the psp and ds lite's, but it's nothing like that, it's a 'matt' case. fingerprints don't show up on it, although they obviously do on the back, but this happens with my other ipod, too. easily wiped off though. so yes, all in all, i'm very impressed with my new ipod and kicking myself for taking these bad reviews into account, because for me, they're not justified. it's also well worth the money, my first cost £220 at the time, and it was 20gb.... Read Full Review »
1 / 5	Please read this before you buy an ipod i wrote this "i did" (Bucks) - 24 September 2007 The ipod is a design classic; they all look great and are really easy to use. The problem is simple: Apple do not build them to last, so they don't. Which would be fine.... if they weren't so expensive. Check out these extracts from the Guardian Money article "Is your iPod one of the bad Apples?": "...the Sale of Goods Act.... guidelines from the Department of Trade & Industry...states that goods should last up to six years, depending on their cost and expected durability." "Paul Edwards of Kendal in Cumbria found that his (ipod) battery packed up just outside the warranty period. `I contacted Apple, asked them to consider that electrical goods should last longer than a year as stated in Department of Trade & Industry guidelines and the Sale of Goods Act, and they have basically said no.' .... Mr Edwards contacted Guardian Money and we took up his case. But Apple repeated the same message to Mr Edwards - that the machine is only expected to last one year and no more." This case is typical, go googling and you'll see there are thousands of unhappy ipod owners. Click wheels give out, screens crack, touch screens don't respond, batteries give up the ghost, head phone sockets crackle and fail. Add to this Apple's unspoken policy to never recall faulty hardware (check for yourself, they only ever `extend warranties' on systems with known common faults). Then add to that Apple's truely terrible UK & Ireland Customer Relations team based in Cork. Forget the branding, the ease of use, the design and the street cred'. Only 2 things matter in a portable music player: Reliability and good customer service if it goes wrong. No ipod offer either of these, so don't buy one. From a former Apple evangelist whose trying to redress the balance.... Read Full Review »