Apple iPod classic 80 GB Silver (6th Generation)

I bought this silver ipod classic to replace a black 5G that was stolen. For what it's worth, I like the silver color better. It doesn't show scratches as much as the black. 80 gig's is enough for my entire digitized music collection, a couple movies, and nearly a dozen TV episodes. Plus, Amazon sold this model for about $215 at the time I got it--though it's worth a list price at Apple. The only drawback to getting this ipod through Amazon is that you can't engrave it with your name, number, or email--but my first video ipod was engraved, and it still got stolen.

Apple just rarely ever disappoints, that's all there is to it!! Ipods just keep getting better, and the 6th generation 80GB is certainly no exception. Really your only question to yourself is how many songs/pics/vids you want to have at hand, and what price-range you're looking at.

The Ipod 160 GB is perhaps the greatest piece of evidence that Apple is way ahead of the game. Not only is this the sleekest, most advanced music player I've ever laid my eyes on, its also the one with the highest storage space (at the time of writing), and perhaps the most stunningly simple user interface. Even if you've used Ipods before (as have I), the 160 GB Ipod comes as a breath of fresh air, especially for users with humungous libraries such as the one I possess. Despite over 200 GB of music, I also have another 60 GB of video (and more added to that everyday) on my Itunes library. Obviously, I can't fit all of that information onto this Ipod, but at the highest end of storage space, this is obviously the way to go.

Reading some of the reviews here, I am glad that I have experienced NONE of the issues other users have mentioned. In fact, nothing has gone wrong at all. The first time I plugged the Ipod in, straight out the box, I named it, and proceeded to sync about 110 GB of information right away (I didn't even bother to charge the battery fully, and I'm guessing this wasn't perhaps the right way to go, but whatever). 110 GB of information took close to three hours to sync (which isn't a bad thing), and it was cool watching songs literally 'fly' into the Ipod - the transfer rates are amazing here!

My only pet peeve was the Cover Flow feature that everyone seems to have a problem with. Even if I have legally downloaded music or my mammoth collection of music ripped from my CDs as well as those tons of albums that I've downloaded off the Web, I always make sure to tag each album with the right high-resolution artwork. Which is why nearly every song on my library has artwork associated with it. This is a good thing, because when I choose 'Cover Flow' as an option to research my music library on the Ipod, it doesn't give me blank placeholders like it does for so many other users. It gives me a relevant picture every single time, and this really works for me. Other users have also commented on the slow speed of the Cover Flow option - it is a little slow and you can hear that hard drive within the Ipod turn a little bit - but its nothing you can't deal with.

Remember that this Ipod is NOT flash-based. Its hard-drive based, but thats nothing to put you off. Things start just as quickly as they do on the Nano or the Ipod Touch, and I vastly prefer using this than any of the other two devices. The greatest thing about this model is obviously the storage space, but also the fact that it never lets you doubt its capacity and speed-ability for a second.

The video facility is great, but as usual every single video needs to be in that MP4 format that Apple knows and loves. I'm not so sure about MP4, primarily because it doesn't give me excellent resolution. I wish there were some way I could directly put my DVD's raw master-data VOB files on the Ipod to play, but I guess technology hasn't quite caught up yet. In many instances, despite the rather small screen, you can still tell that the quality of video is drastically reduced on an MP4 when you rip it from a DVD. I recently bought a legal copy of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" starring Brad Pitt (on a side note - the film is a masterpiece), and thought it to be one of the most amazing pieces of art ever. When I ripped it to MP4 (and I experimented with different conversion programs) and put it on the Ipod, some of the charm and 'wow' factor were lost. Oh well, on a screen this small, you can't really complain.

Not that the screen is THAT small. Sure, its big enough, but this is perhaps the only place where the Iphone and Ipod Touch score more points than the Ipod Classic. Also, it doesn't matter if your raw video file pre-conversion is in low quality WMV, AVI, MPEG, FLV or RM format - after you use an MP4 convertor, the files pretty much become the same size and same quality of video resolution. I'm not so sure about this though, as the low quality rip of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" that I ripped off You-tube, seemed exactly the same as the 210MB AVI Madonna video that I converted into MP4. Still, the fact that this can hold all of my videos in one place is all that I really want, and it really is like my entire music and video library walking around with me. Brilliant!

Also note that though this is the 160 GB model, the available space is actually only around 142 GB (you'll notice the same thing in other Ipods as well). That's OK though, as this will be my handy companion until Apple decides to offer a 500GB model or (even better) a 1TB model. You must remember that there are many, many users out there with enormous music and video libraries. My own video library grows at a rapid pace everyday, as I buy DVDs or download movies from the Web every week, and I could easily hit the 1TB mark by the end of the year at the rate I'm going. Through that spectrum, 160 GB does seem rather small. I guess its just a matter of pick and choose.

Users have also complained about the sound quality here. I must say that it sounds pretty much the same as my Ipod Shuffle and my friends' Ipod Nano, but it actually sounds better when you get rid of the white Apple earphones and invest in some proper earphone equipment. Believe me, its worth the investment. I always have felt that the white Apple headphones lacked depth, clarity or 'life', and when I recently picked up some Creative headphones and plugged them into my Ipod, it seemed as if I was listening to a totally different device. Point: the Ipod is brilliant, but it needs proper earphones to actually appreciate.

Also, to avoid my Ipod from getting scratched or injured, I immediately picked up an Ipod case to hold it. I suggest doing the same as the device seems way too precious to be carried around naked. Placing it in a holder makes perfect sense, it also looks better, and in my own personal case - my case disguises my Ipod as a low-cost mobile phone that no one in their right minds would want to steal! Invest in something like that, and you'll be thanking yourself later.

After about ten months of solid MP3 player research, and having tried out virtually every other brand in the market at stores and through friends' experiences, I am glad to say that the Ipod 160 GB is clearly the winner by a large margin. While lovers of style versus substance would always pick the Ipod Touch as the clear winner due to its' larger screen and more hi-tech appearance, the upper-end storage-loving ones amongst us will almost universally gravitate toward the 160 GB. Believe me, if at all you have a large library, this is the ONLY way to go.

Five Stars. The greatest musical invention thus far, and one that is worth every shred of its' asking price. A masterpiece of technological advancement.

I really am enjoying my iPod classic 80 Gig. Ipods were already a very good product. This one is great. It is more streamlined in size, has better digital sound quality than earlier versions, and displays video sharply on a large screen for the size of the unit. I have 2 weeks of music on my iPod and it isn't even a 1/4 full. I highly recommend this product for music lovers.

"The iPod is the best invention since the pocket!"

I love the 80gb Ipod classic. For me everything works perfectly. Except for one thing, most older addon devices are incompatible. I bought a cable to use for video that doesn't work with this ipod and now have to pay another $50 for a cable to hook it up to my tv, made me pretty upset. also i use windows 2000 which does not support the latest version of itunes so i cannot use itunes with it and had to download floola or yamipod for it. the device itself is great, click wheel works perfectly, movies look great and hard drive size is awesome. so far my battery life has been good and i have really enjoyed the device. The only reason i gave it 4 stars is for the hassle i had not being able to use itunes or my video cable.