Review by Alex:

NOTICE: This review is for the NEW 2009 160GB iPod Classic, NOT the 2007 160GB iPod Classic!

The new 160GB iPod Classic is easily Apple Inc.’s best iPod to date, and out of all of the iPods that I own, this is my favorite.

First, the capacity of this iPod is simply unbeatable. I’ve yet to see another portable media player that can match the iPod Classic in capacity. I have a huge music library, and it’s nice to be able to carry every song that I own on my person at all times. What’s more, thanks to the iPod Classic’s capacity, I also have room to carry a few videos with me, and some of my photos. If you don’t like having to pick which songs to load onto your portable media player, the iPod Classic is the way to go.

The second thing that I love about this iPod can be summed up in two words: it works. The 160GB iPod Classic that was introduced in 2007 was extremely buggy, had a non-responsive Clickwheel on many units, crashed frequently, and required a hit-and-miss firmware update to stop the hard drive from spinning even when the device was “off,” which often lead to dead batteries. All of these problems left the 2007 160GB iPod Classic warming shelves and earning it the infamous “honor” of being the “worst selling iPod ever,” according to Apple. I’m pleased to say that the new 160GB iPod Classic released earlier this month has virtually none of these problems. There’s no “spinning hard drive bug,” the Clickwheel is incredibly responsive, and the device isn’t crash-prone. While it’s true that many of these issues were fixed with last year’s iPod Classic, there hasn’t been a truly functional 160GB model until now. To put it bluntly, this is the iPod that Apple should’ve released in 2007.

Another thing that I really like about this iPod, and the iPod Classic in general, is it’s ability to double as an external hard drive. While I believe that the iPod Nano is also capable of this, the only iPod that really has enough space to function as an external hard drive is the iPod Classic. The hard drive functionality admittedly reduces the number of devices I have to carry on me at any given time. If you regularly work with large files and are considering a new iPod, the iPod Classic is the way to go, plain and simple.

So what are the caveats? Well for starters, as with every other iPod Classic, this is a hard-drive (rather than flash-memory) based device. As a result, it has moving parts which make it unsuitable for running or any physical activity that exerts mechanical shock onto the iPod. Unless you exercise constantly with your iPod though, this really shouldn’t be an issue. The only other caveat, which is more of personal taste than an actual flaw, that I can find, is that Apple has not made any cosmetic changes to this device since they introduced it in 2007. Now don’t get me wrong, the point of an iPod “Classic,” is to retain the “Classic” design, but after seeing how much better a black Clickwheel looks on the silver iPod Nano, I’d have thought that Apple would have given the silver iPod Classic a black Clickwheel as well. However, I admit that this is entirely my personal preference and not a “flaw” per se. I’ve put a quick list of pros and cons together, which can be seen below:

Pros: Largest iPod Capacity-wise, long battery life, “Genius” feature, excellent value for your money, well-built, doubles as an external hard drive, and improvements to Cover Flow.

Cons: Hard Drive (rather than Flash memory) based storage medium; device is cosmetically identical to the 2007 80GB model. (I still don’t understand why Apple hasn’t colored the Clickwheel black on the silver model to match the iPod Nano.)

Finally, I would highly recommend this product, which is why it gets five stars from me. I don’t like the iPod Nano; it’s too small for my hands, and the screen is too small for my eyes. While the iPod Touch may have app store access and Wi-Fi, I find it to be a really gimmicky device, that makes for a poor portable media player, (Apple was wise to position it as a handheld game system,) and is really an “iPhone without a phone.” In contrast, the iPod Classic is an excellent portable media player, it has an excellent interface, and it only costs 9 dollars. To put things in perspective, the 2009 160GB iPod Classic costs dollars more than a 16GB iPod Nano, and 0 dollars less than a 64GB iPod Touch. All in all, I highly recommend this product.

Review by Juan Fuentes:

This is the second iPod I own. The first one was a 30 Mb 5th Generation Ipod Video.

First, the plus.

There are many improvements in the 7th generation comparing it to the 5th, although I think most of them were introduced with the 6th Gen. The whole Cover Flow/Genius capabilities are definetly an improvement to the previous software. The games are a nice bonus. I’ve only had it for three days, but I can already see that I like the new interface a lot more.

And the disk space, I mean, WOW! The ipod is basically the same size as my 30 Gb one, but it’s capacity is over 5 times bigger. I am an avid music fan, have tons of music, and my musical taste ranges from ambient to heavy metal, but I think it’s going to be a long time before I fill this one up. I think this is the best feature of this iPod, and by itself, the reason you should buy it.

There are also video capabilities, which have always been a plus, and some other stuff, but I didn’t see a major difference from the previous versions.

But then, why did I give it 4 stars? I wanted 4.5 stars, but Amazon doesn’t let me do that.

Here are the cons.

First, as previous reviewers have stated, the sound quality seems to have downgraded from the 5th Gen iPod. The sound lacks depth, the songs sound more flat. I don’t mean to say that the sound is bad, because it still has a very good sound, and I’ve tested it with headphones, computer speakers and my car stereo. I’m just saying that the 5th Generation iPod sounds better, and the difference is quite noticeable.

The other thing, which might be just my iPod, because I didn’t see other reviewers mentioning it, is that the click wheel seems to be less sensitive/responsive than the 5th Generation one. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is annoying sometimes that you try so select a song or an option on the menu and the wheel doesn’t respond right away.

There’s also the fact that using Cover Flow seems to make the iPod proccess slower, but then again, loading the covers of literally thousands of records is not a quick task, and you can always not use Cover Flow, so I won’t hold this against the iPod.

To sum it all up. If you have a lot of music and want to carry it all with you; if 30, 60, 80 or 120 Gb is just not enough; if this is your first iPod purchase, or if you just really, really like the new interface and games (I know I did), then I highly reccomend it, and you won’t be dissapointed. To me this is definetly the best music player on the market. You will need to sit down and learn how to use iTunes, but when you do, you’re just going to love this little gadget.

However, if you have a 5th generation iPod that’s working just fine, and you prefer sound quality to disk space, you might not want to buy this one. Just try to be more more picky with the songs you put on it, I guess.

Review by Alex:

NOTICE: This review is for the NEW 2009 160GB iPod Classic, NOT the 2007 160GB iPod Classic!

The new 160GB iPod Classic is easily Apple Inc.’s best iPod to date, and out of all of the iPods that I own, this is my favorite.

First, the capacity of this iPod is simply unbeatable. I’ve yet to see another portable media player that can match the iPod Classic in capacity. I have a huge music library, and it’s nice to be able to carry every song that I own on my person at all times. What’s more, thanks to the iPod Classic’s capacity, I also have room to carry a few videos with me, and some of my photos. If you don’t like having to pick which songs to load onto your portable media player, the iPod Classic is the way to go.

The second thing that I love about this iPod can be summed up in two words: it works. The 160GB iPod Classic that was introduced in 2007 was extremely buggy, had a non-responsive Clickwheel on many units, crashed frequently, and required a hit-and-miss firmware update to stop the hard drive from spinning even when the device was “off,” which often lead to dead batteries. All of these problems left the 2007 160GB iPod Classic warming shelves and earning it the infamous “honor” of being the “worst selling iPod ever,” according to Apple. I’m pleased to say that the new 160GB iPod Classic released earlier this month has virtually none of these problems. There’s no “spinning hard drive bug,” the Clickwheel is incredibly responsive, and the device isn’t crash-prone. While it’s true that many of these issues were fixed with last year’s iPod Classic, there hasn’t been a truly functional 160GB model until now. To put it bluntly, this is the iPod that Apple should’ve released in 2007.

Another thing that I really like about this iPod, and the iPod Classic in general, is it’s ability to double as an external hard drive. While I believe that the iPod Nano is also capable of this, the only iPod that really has enough space to function as an external hard drive is the iPod Classic. The hard drive functionality admittedly reduces the number of devices I have to carry on me at any given time. If you regularly work with large files and are considering a new iPod, the iPod Classic is the way to go, plain and simple.

So what are the caveats? Well for starters, as with every other iPod Classic, this is a hard-drive (rather than flash-memory) based device. As a result, it has moving parts which make it unsuitable for running or any physical activity that exerts mechanical shock onto the iPod. Unless you exercise constantly with your iPod though, this really shouldn’t be an issue. The only other caveat, which is more of personal taste than an actual flaw, that I can find, is that Apple has not made any cosmetic changes to this device since they introduced it in 2007. Now don’t get me wrong, the point of an iPod “Classic,” is to retain the “Classic” design, but after seeing how much better a black Clickwheel looks on the silver iPod Nano, I’d have thought that Apple would have given the silver iPod Classic a black Clickwheel as well. However, I admit that this is entirely my personal preference and not a “flaw” per se. I’ve put a quick list of pros and cons together, which can be seen below:

Pros: Largest iPod Capacity-wise, long battery life, “Genius” feature, excellent value for your money, well-built, doubles as an external hard drive, and improvements to Cover Flow.

Cons: Hard Drive (rather than Flash memory) based storage medium; device is cosmetically identical to the 2007 80GB model. (I still don’t understand why Apple hasn’t colored the Clickwheel black on the silver model to match the iPod Nano.)

Finally, I would highly recommend this product, which is why it gets five stars from me. I don’t like the iPod Nano; it’s too small for my hands, and the screen is too small for my eyes. While the iPod Touch may have app store access and Wi-Fi, I find it to be a really gimmicky device, that makes for a poor portable media player, (Apple was wise to position it as a handheld game system,) and is really an “iPhone without a phone.” In contrast, the iPod Classic is an excellent portable media player, it has an excellent interface, and it only costs 9 dollars. To put things in perspective, the 2009 160GB iPod Classic costs dollars more than a 16GB iPod Nano, and 0 dollars less than a 64GB iPod Touch. All in all, I highly recommend this product.

Review by Juan Fuentes:

This is the second iPod I own. The first one was a 30 Mb 5th Generation Ipod Video.

First, the plus.

There are many improvements in the 7th generation comparing it to the 5th, although I think most of them were introduced with the 6th Gen. The whole Cover Flow/Genius capabilities are definetly an improvement to the previous software. The games are a nice bonus. I’ve only had it for three days, but I can already see that I like the new interface a lot more.

And the disk space, I mean, WOW! The ipod is basically the same size as my 30 Gb one, but it’s capacity is over 5 times bigger. I am an avid music fan, have tons of music, and my musical taste ranges from ambient to heavy metal, but I think it’s going to be a long time before I fill this one up. I think this is the best feature of this iPod, and by itself, the reason you should buy it.

There are also video capabilities, which have always been a plus, and some other stuff, but I didn’t see a major difference from the previous versions.

But then, why did I give it 4 stars? I wanted 4.5 stars, but Amazon doesn’t let me do that.

Here are the cons.

First, as previous reviewers have stated, the sound quality seems to have downgraded from the 5th Gen iPod. The sound lacks depth, the songs sound more flat. I don’t mean to say that the sound is bad, because it still has a very good sound, and I’ve tested it with headphones, computer speakers and my car stereo. I’m just saying that the 5th Generation iPod sounds better, and the difference is quite noticeable.

The other thing, which might be just my iPod, because I didn’t see other reviewers mentioning it, is that the click wheel seems to be less sensitive/responsive than the 5th Generation one. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is annoying sometimes that you try so select a song or an option on the menu and the wheel doesn’t respond right away.

There’s also the fact that using Cover Flow seems to make the iPod proccess slower, but then again, loading the covers of literally thousands of records is not a quick task, and you can always not use Cover Flow, so I won’t hold this against the iPod.

To sum it all up. If you have a lot of music and want to carry it all with you; if 30, 60, 80 or 120 Gb is just not enough; if this is your first iPod purchase, or if you just really, really like the new interface and games (I know I did), then I highly reccomend it, and you won’t be dissapointed. To me this is definetly the best music player on the market. You will need to sit down and learn how to use iTunes, but when you do, you’re just going to love this little gadget.

However, if you have a 5th generation iPod that’s working just fine, and you prefer sound quality to disk space, you might not want to buy this one. Just try to be more more picky with the songs you put on it, I guess.

Review by Nancy J. Melito:

My suspicion on reading the description was that product quality must be low to provide that many items for the price. I went ahead and took the gamble anyway, and I’m happy to report my instinct was wrong. The items are as described and I’m very pleased. I needed a case and a portable charging option. I now have much more.

Review by Remigio Moncayo:

All the items arrived in great condition and the quality is very good, also, their customer service rocks!, I totally recommend this product.

Review by Jersey Girl:

**Before you read some of the negative reviews, please consider this was BEFORE the new firmware update 1.0.3 came out so unfortunately they had unresponsive clickwheels, itunes messing up etc. Also some people simply did NOT upgrade their firmware for whatever reason but A LOT of those problems have been fixed with the new firmware so UPGRADE YOUR FIRMWARE AS SOON AS YOU GET YOUR IPOD! It will make a BIG difference!**

Ok, on to the review..I just got my 80 gb ipod classic recently with a 3 year extended service plan, immediately got itunes version 7.5 and upgraded the firmware immediately to 1.0.3 which seems to have taken care of A LOT of bugs people have been reporting. It must have because I am not getting ANY of the problems other have reported such as laggy clickwheel, itunes freezing etc. The clickwheel is VERY responsive, only a light touch is needed and scrolling through cover art was very quick! No problems whatsoever with the clickwheel. I also have had no problems copying files to itunes and transferring them to my ipod. The ipod itself is a thing of beauty, love the non scratchable surface but the back of the ipod is where you can see all the fingerprints etc so get a good cover for it. The slimness of it is very sleek and heck this ipod just looks cool. I got the ipod up and running in no time after I transferred my music over. Love the search feature as well. There is a lot of features, settings and extra’s. Heck I even like the clock.

PLEASE NOTE:TURN OFF & DON’T use the EQ (equalizer setting)if you want normal distortion free sound. I was using the EQ and wondered why a lot of my songs had distortion. I thought it was due to the bad sound everyone was talking about until I turned OFF the EQ. Upon turning the EQ off, the distortion vanished completely, the sound was just fine, pretty good in fact. It’s a shame that you have to turn off the EQ settings to get good sound. Hopefully Apple will fix this with a firmware update.

I almost got one of the itouch ipods but the very limited space is what kept me from doing so. 80 gb is plenty of space for my music, a bit of videos etc. It might not have wifi or a touch screen but it’s got tons of space for my music and that’s what counts! I love my ipod classic, can’t find much to be picky about except for the sound when EQ is enabled. It does exactly what it’s supposed to, is easy to navigate, videos look crisp/great on it and most of all it holds a crapload of music. Just remember to upgrade your firmware to the newest version, disable EQ and invest in a good pair of headphones. One of the best things about the ipod classic is that because it has so much space, I don’t have to worry about how many mp3′s I put on it. I’ve never downloaded so many mp3′s in my life! I literally put my entire collection of mp3′s on it and still have tons of space left. Overall, I rate the ipod classic 80 gb (black)…absolutely superb.

Review by Nse Ette:

Ok guys, I just picked up my silver iPod classic 160gb from the Apple store on Regent Street in London so I can give an actual review on it.

I’ve had an 80GB video iPod for a year and it’s already full, so I was really hoping Apple would make an iPod big enough for me. Presently I’ve got 110GB (and counting) of music, so this iPod is for people like me who have a large music collection, and who like to be able to take it anyplace.

The 160GB iPod is the same size as the 80gb, but costs less than the 80GB did when it first came out.

With a brushed aluminium front finish (similar to the 2 and 3G Nanos), it should be less prone to scratching, though the back is the same smudge magnet, and I don’t know how resilient the screen is. The front is curvier than that of the last 2 video iPods, with the screen slightly depressed from the rest of the casing.

Additional features are extra long battery life (40 hours for music, 7 hours for video; I’ve tested this and playing music non stop without much fast forwarding, etc, it’s about right), and cover flow (a fun way of scrolling through for music using album cover art, though it is a bit sluggish).

The new split-screen interface lists functions to the left half of the screen, and symbols (or previews of content such as cover art, videos or photos shown as a slide show) to the right as you scroll through the functions. Neat!!

During music playback, after being idle for about 80 seconds, the screen goes gray and displays a clock, and battery power. Viewing tracks in an album also gives you, at a glance, the track times. Same for video. A nice touch. To my hearing, the sound quality (without equalizers, mind you) is improved; more bass and a bit more treble. The iPod turns off in about 2 seconds, much faster than previous models.

It’s still got the other regular features; album track lyrics (new, nicer text font, and it also shows the album art), can play video and games, store photos, contacts, calendar, notes, stopwatch, and screen lock (which allows you to lock the screen with a password), and it can be used as an external hard drive. It shows up in windows explorer as an external drive. The search feature allowing one to type in album/song/artist titles (introduced in the last video iPod) is still there, but relocated to the “music” menu. I didn’t spot it at first. In fact, the menu has been reshuffled to make it better, and (under settings) one can now view number of songs, videos, photos, etc graphically just like in iTunes.

If you need loads of space for your music collection, you can’t go wrong getting this. Judging from the crowds in the store, Apple’s got another hit here. Now if only the iPod touch had this much memory…

Review by Deanokat:

My son just turned 18 and we got him an 80GB iPod for his birthday. We gave him an eVo4 iSkin case with it, but that thing was a piece of junk. It took forever to get it on. And after it was on, the iPod looked like an alien being from another planet. And my son couldn’t dock the iPod in his Luna clock radio while it was in the iSkin case. So we searched around for another case. We wanted something that would protect the iPod from every day wear and tear without going overboard. The DLO HipCase is the perfect solution (at about 1/2 the price!). The iPod fits snugly within this nice leather case. Nice and soft inside. The fold open/fold down flap has a magnetic closure to keep it secure. Easy access to the click wheel, charging port, hold button, and headphone jack. And at night when my son wants to dock the iPod in his clock radio, he can just slip it out of its case. I think the iSkin case would’ve required a jackhammer to get it out every night. Aside from being very functional, this case also hits a home run in two other areas: 1.) It’s very stylish. Very simple design, nice leather, nice belt clip. And 2.) It’s very reasonably priced. If I didn’t know how much I paid for it, after having seen the case in person and held it, I would’ve guessed it cost two or even three times more than it did. The DLO HipCase Leather Folio is the perfect companion to the iPod Classic. A classic looking case for a Classic iPod.

Review by J. Marren:

This is the best case I’ve ever had for an IPod. The fit for the classic is perfect. The quality is far better than the price would suggest. I hate having plastic over the screen–here the flip protects the screen. It would be nice if the belt clip were removable but I don’t care all that much. For an adult, this is a sleek stylish case at a great price. Highly recommended.

Review by Stephen Hall:

The updated iPod Classic was probably the least exciting of the new iPods announced in the September 2008 update, but that does not mean it should be dismissed.

I own the 160 GB iPod Classic that has now been discontinued, but there are few differences (perhaps the biggest being the much slimmer shape of this 120 model), and I did get to check this updated 120 GB version out at the store, when picking up the new nano and touch.

Firstly, the 120 GB version is again smaller than the largest capacity available last year, but it is a single platter hard drive, which allows it to maintain the slim shape of the 80 GB version from last year. More storage, a hundred dollars less, and just as small. That is progress despite calls from others that the classic isn’t exciting. It still serves its purpose as the original iPod idea. Big capacity in a simple to use device.

Next, the software has been slightly updated on the iPod Classic. It now includes Genius, like iTunes and the other new iPods. This allows you, when on a song you enjoy, to select the genius feature. The iPod will then compile a list of songs (playlist), which goes together with the original song you were listening to. This helps you rediscover music in your library, with a playlist to fit your mood at the time. I have been using the genius feature for a few days now, and it is impressive the way it compiles these playlists. I was skeptical, but overall, it does a good job. Furthermore, as another review mentioned, the iPod does seem more responsive with this update from what I saw at the store compared to my original 160 GB iPod Classic. Some speculation has been that the older iPod Classics will receive the software update of this new one, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

Overall, the original iPod concept was so good, and that is why the iPod Classic is still a solid choice for a music and media player. It will hold thousands and thousands of songs (up to 30,000 according to Apple at 128 bitrate). I also backup some important files to my iPod Classic, in disk mode, so that I have that additional extra copy of my most vital files. When you have such a large iPod, you can do that. It shouldn’t be forgotten either that while the display of the iPod Classic isn’t as good as the iPod Touch or iPhone, it is still quite good and you can play music videos, TV shows, and movies purchased on the iTunes Store.

Battery life for this new 120 GB model improved over the 80GB model from last year. Apple now estimates it at 36 hours audio and 6 hours video.

I’d recommend the iPod Classic without hesitation, to those who have more than 8 or 16 GBs of music in their iTunes library and want to carry their entire collection. Furthermore, if you have videos and video podcasts you want to always carry with you, again, you can’t beat the storage. I have the lower capacity flash devices as well, but the big hard drive based iPod Classic continues to play an important role in my iPod Collection.

Review by D. Porter:

Well, I bought two of these. No, don’t ask me why. Please just believe that I purchased two new 7th generation iPods – against the advice of the reviewer who obviously did some homework as to why the old units sound better, I might add. I looked at many forums and read from many people who think the new iPods, (6th generation and later,) have a poorer sound quality than their predecessors. Then I read from those folks who believe that yes, Apple changed the audio codec chip, and yes, several audiophiles have done some qualitative testing and the old units won, but nevertheless, the difference should be impossible to hear with the naked ear. Let me just assure you right now, it is not. The difference in sound quality between my wife’s 5.5 gen 80 gig iPod and my two new 120 gig units is vast. Using the same headphones and songs, downloaded from the same computer, the new iPod sounds like listening to music played inside a tin can compared to the old one. For instance, in one song a drummer rakes his hand across some chimes and on the 80 gig, the chimes are crystal, distinct, and separate from all the other things going on at the time. On the new 120 gig at the same spot, the highs are all compressed into a jumble of noise with flat, tinny, cut off sounds. The chimes sound far off and suppressed. The list of music defacement goes on. I noticed this problem across all tonal ranges. So what did I do? I opened a case with Apple and made an appointment at the nearby Apple store. Yes, I lugged in my laptop and two of the iPods. At the store I synced one of their units to the same song and we went through all three iPods, my one new unit, my one old unit, and the store unit, listening to the same 30 or so seconds of song on each iPod over and over. And over. The results were clear… much clearer than the sound from the new iPods, I’m sorry to say. At the store I also inquired about the noticeable lag when starting songs on the new unit. I was told, “It’s much more complicated software.” Obviously the ability to view the album covers has won out over quality sound. So I’m returning the two 120 gig iPods. Apple is getting them back. Good riddance. Perhaps Apple has forgotten that people buy iPods for entertainment’s sake. Music and movies. I hope this helps them to remember that people buy music playing devices to actually listen to music. Now, I’ve read from the reviewers who suggest that we who want good sound from portable music devices should just get over it. Well, I say blah! Blah on them all! I assert that Apple should be improving sound with new generations of devices. If they want my money that’s what they will have to do. I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to expect newer models of expensive electronic devices to outperform old ones. As for sound quality, the older iPod puts forth very adequate sound. Certainly it could have been improved upon, or at the very least left alone. In fact, how dare the naysayers suggest that we all settle for poor sound? That we should expect poor sound? I say my money goes to the company willing to aim for high fidelity from its music devices. That won’t be Apple for the nonce. If all you want is an expensive portable hard drive with a video screen, this is definitely the unit for you.