Apple iPod classic 6th Generation Black (160 GB) MP3 Player

I know this review is going to get some major fanboy attention, and some negative feedback but someone has to give an honest view on these new devices from apple. First the pros and cons...

Pros: The huge hard drive and better battery life, more durable

Cons: Feature Dry, Removed Winamp and Linux support, poor color depth

This Ipod reminds me of when I got a bad grade in grade school, brings it up to a B and gets showered in praise by both the faculty and their parents. The Ipod classic improves upon many areas that hurt Ipods competition in multimedia market but it takes a spiral leap downward in an area that to many is a more then important feature, independance From Itunes, the developers of the new Ipod Classic and next Gen Nano admit that they have purposely made it nearly impossible for Linux and Winamp users to use the alternative software available for the older generation of players, the reasoning to this is simple, if you aren't paying 1 dollar per song your not getting it from apple. Also please note that unlike the Ipod Video that performed amirably better then claimed these next gen players that although perform better then the last gen of players. have been rediculously overestimated. My advice, wait until someone hacks it, because when you tell the community you have made it hackproof, iPhones happen.

Update: Huge firmware bugs cause this player to drain its battery in an off state and crash the newest version of iTunes (which is required). Apple has been deleting posts made by its customers stateing the issue.

My iPod came delivered in the timeframe as outlined. Being a refurbished item, I couldn't tell the difference if it was brand new. There were no markings on the screen, front or back. Seriously, it was as if I bought it directly from a retailer. The price was fantastic...I spent a couple of weeks trying to win an ipod from an auction, but too much B.S., and wasting time on line waiting for that final seconds to pass by. So I began to look at the items under buy it now, and I found what I was looking for. First, I was looking for an iPod with a 120 GB memory, but the more I looked, the more I found out that the price between a 120 and 160 was very marginal to say, so I focused my attention on the 160 GB. I found this particular item, and I saved it in my watching area, and looked some more. Couldn't find any better deals that caught my attention, so I purchased this one. Glad that I did, I am very happy with my iPod, should have bought one earlier.

I purchased an iPod Classic 160GB represented as in excellent condition. It was not: Hard Drive was defective was first day. No response to my request to return it for refund. I sent it in for new hard drive and now the iPod Classic is in excellent condition. Complete misrepresentation by seller. Also, it was cosmetically poor with scratches on screen and body. I sent it to Colorware and had it painted, and it is now cosmetically perfect. Don't buy from e-Bay they offer no assistance with fraudulent buyers. They won't run this review either.

This seller ripped me off. Never sent the item. Paypal helped a little. Do not buy from this guy. In other reviews on the 160 gb Ipod the battery life was in question, is that a concern? Why did Apple drop this model?

I would not buy from this seller. I don't know how well the product works since he took my money and never sent it.

I hope you all see this

Let me start by admitting this is my 4th iPod, and I didn't have any problems with the previous 3 except the simple truth my media files exceeded my storage capacity, so...160GB seemed like a plausible solution. I still own the previous gen (5.5) 80GB iPod video and it works perfectly fine. This 160GB Classic is a nightmare and Apple's lack of product support is shear lunacy. I have written and phoned ad nauseum without any resolution, and I paid an extra $60 for the AppleCare Protection Plan above & beyond the $350 cost for the Ipod itself. It crashes daily and needs to be "restored" which can take 6-8 hours to erase, reformat and restore all the music & media files. I have the most current version of iTunes as well as the most current version of iPod software. I shipped the iPod back to Apple, they kept it for a week and then sent it back to me with a letter stating they couldn't find anything wrong with it.

I own a 4GB Apple iPod Nano too, and it works perfectly fine...but not this 160GB Classic! It doesn't sync with iTunes, it needs to be restored daily, it loses the media and crashes repeatedly...it's essentially useless. After repeated letters and phone calls to Apple, I'm basically stuck with a $350 piece of useless hardware.

Ok let's go through my iPod history. My first iPod was a 4th Generation iPod photo. This was an amazing iPod, but scratched very easily. My second iPod was a 2nd Generation iPod Nano. The nano was absolutely great! I still love and recommend it to this day. It got the job done very well and very fast due to the flash memory instead of a hard drive. I purchased a iPod Touch when they first came out to replace my iPod Nano. The Touch was great at first, but was bulky and was most often mistaken for an iPhone. I ended up selling it because it was so hard to choose 16gb of music out of my 115gb iTunes Library. I was slightly disappointed when I first received the iPod classic. The scroll wheel was not easy to move. Sometimes the scroll wheel would not even move and cycling through the menus took a while because of the hard drive. Apple just recently updated the firmware to 1.0.3? The scroll wheel moves much smoothly now, but not like the iPod photo or the Nano 2G. The menus still take some time to move between. I would recommend this iPod if you have a large music collection that you want to take with you all the time. It is also a backup of all your music.

You need itunes to put everything on this unit I hate that,I have a ZEN M and all you have to do is drag and drop. With apple you need programs to load your media onto the device.. Big thumbs down, but the player looks good, I like the silver back instea of the wack gold..
GREAT PRODUCT PEOPLE REALLY LIKE IT.. But I dont.

I bought this for my husband for Christmas, and it was exactly what he wanted. He loves the storage capacity, and it is very easy to use. It is also lightweight and pretty durable (we did buy a protective case though).

One cool thing is that you can get a personal message engraved on the back. :)

Nothing to dislike, overall a good product.

It's good to see vendors still out there offering to the public that which Apple no longer sells. You see, there are a bunch of us "audiophiles" who want tons of gigs of the music we've archived available to us through a player system. Nothing (sorry Zune fans) compares to the iPod. Since Apple has gotten into more gadgetry, and has fallen into this philosophy that smaller and more compact is better, and not realizing that a bulky iPod is still okay compared to lugging around thousands of CD's, people like me who want one place for all of the music suffer from these corporate decisions Apple makes. I was so relieved that when the time came for me to invest in the 160gb model that Apple offered, it amazed me to still get the unit, and it amazed me even more to get it at a price that was 50% lower (no tax charges or shipping either)than what I would have paid if I rewound the clock to the time Apple sold this iPod. It's great to have music in the palm of my hand that is as powerful as an external hard drive! Thanks "wall-matt" for the great sale!

This iPod (160gb) holds all of kodak pictures. It holds all (at least 50)movies and all my music (over 6,000)songs. I use it as a extra storage divice.
I have bought one for each of my three grown children. And I am the one that puts all of there songs and movies and their iPods.

First off let me say that I do not believe there is any portable mp3 device with this much storage.This is one of the main reasons I purchased this one, my 5.5 gen 80 gb ipod was almost full.

I've seen some reviews that say the sound quality isn't the same.I personally do not notice any difference.Think about where you listen to music and on what speakers , earbuds.I think these people are just being picky..There is always backround noise no matter where you are.

The more advanced munues are ok if you like flash, but they make the hard drive run while just scrolling through menues.This will of course put more wear on the hdd. and run down the battery. Not Thrilled! I didn't like that at all, but I usually look through genres to find what I want to hear and that doesn't start the hdd, until you pick the artist. Save the cover art scroll for when you show it to someone else.It's really only for flash!It takes many hdd starts to go through 900+cds.Even browsing by artist starts the hdd.

The battery life is very good though, even with all of the hard drive starts.I ran it for about 5 hours so far and the battery meter is still full. I did put it on the charger today and it charged for about 45 mins.

Now to get to the biggest thing to concider about this new generation of ipod.
Apple has disabled the video output capibilities UNLESS you use their cables. 50$ plus tax and shipping for the cable and wall adapter.I, having owned other ipods have a sonic impact to play my ipod videos through.It has a nice 7" screen and very good sounding speakers...I can still play music on it, but the movies only play on the ipod screen.I find this to be a HUGE drawback to this ipod.The video ipod got all of my dvds out of my car for trips while holding 80 or more movies, all without skipping on bumpy roads.If this is important to you , also I would say that the 5th gen 80 gb is your best option.I haven't purchased the cables(50$+tax and shipping),and will use the older ipod for this purpose.If you need the 160 for it's size and you want the video output, as of this review, you'll have to get the apple cables.

All in All I like the ipod and I'm hoping for a lot of good times using it. But if you don't need the space the 5th gen 80 gb ipod would give you much better value. I dont see any real advantage to the new menues and wouldn't have bought the new one for that reason.Size does matter...lol and at 160gb it has more storage size than many home computers.I hope this was helpful.

I love this iPod! I have over 80GB of music(16002 songs) and 40GB of movies (197 movies) on it. With 30GB of free space. Battery life is great. I have a lot of music. Therefore I like to have all of my music with me at all times. Before owning this 160GB, I had a 60GB. I also loved that iPod, but I didn't like having to delete stuff just to put on my new stuff. My 60GB was always completely full!! Which was annoying to me. 80GB just woulnd't cut it for me. I needed this 160 GB :) and once all of your music and vidoes are on it. It has been very reliable to me!

CONS - The original software that comes with the iPod had faults. Sometimes when I was putting all of my music on, iTunes and my iPod would crash. To fix this I had to restore/format the iPod hard drive to factory default.
This seemed to happen mostly when editing music/video data when the data is on your iPod.

WORKAROUND - Edit all of your music and videos in your iTunes Library before connecting your iPod. Such as, adding album art, changing the artist or album and so on.

I gave this product 4 stars because the software problems. I'm sure the software problems will be completely fixed within Now to and a couple of months. That is only my opinion.
I have read many reviews about this iPod before buying it, and from what I have read. Apple has been very professional about fixing these issues and being kind to their customers.
I definately approve of Apple and their customer support. I have been very impressed with them in my past relations with them.

I love this product, the new firmware is great cover flow is a nice little feature for the ipod. There is almost a endless amount of storage. I like the new metal faceplate it doesn't scratch like the old video ipod. I got a screen protector for it and thats it. This is a great product.

So far I love this ipod. In fact I have 3 160GBs. I also have a 80GB but I use that one for my car. Unfortunately, it's MAC formatted. That's because I gave it to one of my boys so he can put music on it & he has a MAC; but it's all good. This 160GB is what I originally wanted any way. Some of these reviews have helped. I really can't say nothing bad about it...only because I'm still new to it & still learning about the product. So far I haven't had any bad experiences. I got all 3 ipods for a great price...way less than retail price (eBay ROCKS!!). Except for one of them. The shipping I paid on one of them was ridiculous; I should of disputed the shipping & handling charges because it (S&H) contradicted what was stated in the listing & the excuse the seller had was eBay was not allowing him/her to make changes...hog wash!! Cancel the listing & re list it w/ the proper description! But that's neither here or there. I just didn't bother leaving feedback. The bottom line is that so far this is a great product. I suggest that if you buy one, get an extended warranty, other than what may already come w/ it. Go w/ Square Trade or Buyshield. They offer 2 & 3 year warranties for good prices & coverage...better than the warranty the retail stores offer...both in price & coverage. You can get one from Apple to, but from what I heard they are a little pricy. I have to check for myself though. Apple is no longer making the 160GB, because they feel it's too much storage space & will never get filled up....I strongly beg to differ; too many songs out there & if you love music, you would know what I'm talking about....so they are making the 120GB instead. Nonetheless, great product.

this is the 5th ipod I have purchased for my personal use, I went from a 20 to a 40, to a 60, to an 80, to a 160g. love this product. I have over 30 days of continues 24 hours of music which is my entire library available when I travel. I felt it was time to move up on capacity, and this was a good deal. With just one exception in my long association with Ebay of over 300 items, I am very pleased, and confortable with my experiance.

I needed to replace my ipod after giving my girlfriend my 80gb after her nano got stolen, and I found this one available, which was perfect for my 100's of gigs of music and video. I got it pretty fast, and I found that it already had stuff on it, including some great comedy stuff, but when I plugged it into my computerto copy what was on it, I was saddened to see it had to be reformatted since the previous owner had a Mac so I couldnt copy the files, but that wasnt really important.

My only issue is that sometimes the ipod pauses for a brief moment between songs or playing a video, Im considering buying one of those warranty pakcages if it would apply so I can have it looked at. But overall, I couldnt be happier now that I can listen to my music while I work out and drive.

I love this purchase it made my day when came in so quickly. I am so happy to have my ipod! It was what i was expecting!

I especially liked that the merchandise was exactly as described. The seller voiced this iPod was "like new", and I received in exactly that condition. The good thing about that is I have earned a reputation of being one who is quite a perfectionist by my coworkers, friends, and peers -- so for me to not have one fiber of regret in dealing with this seller says quite a mouthfull.

I love the i pod but the description was a little off you said it was new it wasn't . I don't know but it says 160GB it's only 150GB . If i wasn't out of the country i would have sent it back . I could have got one here for a few dollars more so there was know big savings

iPod is the best gadget ever!! I can't believe that you can fit so many songs in there. The versatility of uses continues to amaze me. I had a 30 GB unit and thought it couldn't be topped, until I got the 160 GB one.

I have an ipod Touch that I love and use daily, but the space became an issue. I got tired of having to scroll through my itunes and deciding the countless albums I had to leave off. The Touch was my first ipod, but I have had this for a day and have mastered the menu features. I bought this because for the price I paid the value was there. Refurbished is the way to go. The ipod arrived and looked like new, and works like new. Now I can keep the Touch for surfing and movies for trips, and use the Classic for everyday music! I recommend getting this 160gb monster before they become extinct.

Apple has definitely done a bad job by discontinuing this marvel. For us media consumers w/lots of audio and video that we need to make portable this device was excellent. The 120gb does not hold close to the 160gb's potential. I hope they have another big capacity on their drawing board, otherwise grab the 160gb before the price goes up and availability goes scarce.