Apple iPod classic 80 GB Black (6th Generation) OLD MODEL
by Apple Computer
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Our Price: $294.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $112.99 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple iPod classic 80 GB Black (6th Generation) OLD MODEL
Customer Review: Total disappointment, should still be in testing.
Summary: 1 Stars
I'll say for starters this is the first Apple product or iPod I've bought, and I've never been that good at operating any of ones my friends have let me borrow. When I bought this, it was easier to get used to the software and way it works than I thought it would be, which is good, but not good enough with the other problems I've encountered.
About two months ago, my trusty old Creative Zen 20gb finally died after several years of use. Fine, I thought, I sent it to the company I had a warranty with and got most of my money back. I wanted to buy another Zen as I'd loved my first one so much - unfortunately they are impossible to buy in anything above 16gb in New Zealand, so I reluctantly settled for an iPod Classic 80gb.
Worst money I've ever spent. My first complaint is that I find iTunes is awful software. I'm on an oldish computer, admittedly, but whenever I start iTunes up the computer freezes for anywhere upwards of two minutes. It takes ages to add any new files to the library, and when I sync it, it often adds the same album twice.
The first time I synced this, it only added about a third of my library even though I had all the files ticked to be synced. When I plugged it in again, it still wouldn't add the other files. Time for its first reset, and I've only owned the thing for two hours. After this reset, it added the library mostly fine, apart from one album I have which only added half the songs. I don't mean it's added tracks 1-6 of 12 tracks total, it's added all the tracks but only half of each song! What the hell? That album plays fine in itunes but I can't seem to get the whole songs on the ipod, even re-adding the files to the library and syncing again.
Cover art works intermittently - this would be a very cool feature if it worked properly. I have cover art for almost all my albums in itunes, but only about half of them are on my ipod after syncing it. Some are just black squares. Also, if I rename an incorrectly spelt album and then resync the ipod, I thought it would correct the album title on the player. No, it adds the album AGAIN under the same title, and I can't seem to get rid of the incorrectly named one.
The wheel is a bit better than I expected - I had tried a friend's ipod classic out the week before, and the wheel on hers was terribly laggy and unresponsive. The one on my ipod is better, but still lags, freezes and won't work if you have cold hands.
Video quality isn't as good as I expected either. All my videos look far more pixelated than they look on the computer and as if they all have a bad case of jpeg artifacts. Also, the video drains the battery. To be expected, fine, but if you want to watch anything longer than a music video you basically have to have it plugged in and charging on the computer. Why then would you watch the video on the tiny screen rather than on your nice monitor?
Sound quality is pretty tinny. I tried it on my other sets of headphones, and it still doesn't sound very good. It's mediocre at best, and for some reason I can't figure out, all my files are at different volumes. A couple of albums play about twice the volume than the rest of my files, but play normally in iTunes.
All in all, this is totally disappointing even though I bought this thing with fairly few expectations. On the plus side, it looks really cool - the cover flow looks amazing with the album art it correctly displays, and the menus look nice. Battery life is good too, I had it playing overnight on speakers and it hardly dented the battery. However that's not really enough for me to keep the thing. It's going back to the shop in the next couple of days unless I can get all these problems fixed (if anyone has any suggestions for these,particularly the strange half-files, please say!), luckily the shop I bought from accepts returns no questions asked within 7 days of purchase.
Customer Review: Decent, but ultimately not satisfying
Summary: 3 Stars
Apple 80 GB iPod classic (Black)
Firmware version 1.0.3.
I preface this review by noting that I bought the ipod classic for one primary reason - music. I am not that much into videos on such a small screen and am not into podcasts (yet).
The ipod classic has a great deal going for it, including large capacity, slim form factor, great battery life, gapless playback, podcast support, and itunes/itunes music store (some may disagree, but itunes gets the job done fairly smoothly and has a lot of content - just ask Zune 80 owners). However, ultimately, it came down to ease/comfort of use and sound quality, both extremely important to me.
The ipod is renowned for its supposed ease of use (I'm talking about menu navigation within the device); however, after having using this device, it leaves a lot to be desired. The touchwheel was a great innovation when it first came out, but now seems outdated. I found it frustrating navigating the menus; the reason for this is mostly because it is not sensitive/accurate enough. I found myself constantly "missing" my desired selection on menus (for artists, albums, or songs, etc.). Having this occur frequently, particularly with extended periods of listening, gets annoying and becomes a chore and actually somewhat stressful. Also with a decent sized collection of songs (about 6000), having to use the wheel to navigate from one end of the collection to the other is not smooth. If you spin around the wheel fast with your finger, it will eventually bring up letters which you can then scroll through (from "A's to B's, etc.), but I found that activation of this feature was inconsistent and I ended up having to scroll around the wheel tens of times to get to certain albums or songs. These two issues made using the ipod uncomfortable and not enjoyable or relaxing. For comparison, I have tried a Zune 80 (actually bought and returned one before buying the ipod classic) and suprisingly found that its touchpad and navigation system was far more accurate and hence, the Zune was more enjoyable to use (for music, at least).
The second issue with this device besides the navigation was with the sound quality, which is very average to my ears. It's not horrible; "middle of the road" describes it quite well. First, I tried listening with no presets activated; I am not an audiophile type but it just didn't sound that clear and was somewhat flat and plain; I am unsure if the classic may have a poor signal to noise ratio compared to other devices I have listened to. I then tried with the "rock" preset and this actually livened things up a bit, but still did not impress me that much. For comparison, I have an old iAudio M3, which has a much fuller and clear sound quality.
Overall, given the above issues, I returned the device. I think if you don't place prime importance with sound quality and don't mind the touchwheel and are able to navigate the menus well (I couldn't), then the ipod classic will be a great choice.
Again, it has alot going for it. It has great capacity, battery life, nice slim form factor, gapless playback (impressive, one of the only devices with this ability), games/extras (such as calendar, etc.), external hard drive capability, and auto playlists. It is also coupled with itunes (very polished) and the music store, which has plenty of content (music, movies, podcasts, etc.). But if it's difficult to navigate and doesn't sound that great, then having those good qualities is moot for this reviewer.
Customer Review: Would be Great w/ an iTunes Alternative
Summary: 2 Stars
iTunes (PC version) - Wow, I haven't seen corporate software this crappy in years! Even without its critical bugs like locking up, taking WAY too long to start or do anything, constantly forgetting all your settings (like don't try to update my firmware with the new WORSE version every time I connect, or leave my music alone and just let me sync video, ...) this program has very little power to manage you music (tags, compilations, etc.); and what power it has it decides for itself how to use; i.e., forget about any flexibility in presenting your music collection in a way you like.
The only thing it seems good at is resetting my iPod after it screws it up, so I can start fresh with Media Monkey. I could go on but it would just be more ranting.
Fortunately, you can get the beta release of Media Monkey 3 for free, and it feels like much less of a beta than iTunes. There is just no comparison as far as power AND usability goes. BUT as far as I know, you can't sync video. I have tried to copy video only with iTunes, but before it does anything iTunes likes to sit there endlessly telling me to wait as it is happily deleting the 80 Gigs of music it took all night to upload with Media Monkey; despite the fact that I have selected manual sync and un-checked the sync music box. I don't know how many times I have had to leave home without music because I was stupid enough to let iTunes touch my iPod.
The iPod hardware seems pretty good, although the LCD died on my first one. It's sluggish to respond when you operate the wheel. My girlfriend is convinced it doesn't work it all. It does work, it is just amazingly slow at times.
I almost gave it 3 stars because 160 Gig is SO COOL! I love having all my music, podcasts, a few ripped DVD's, and tons of room left for PC data to boot.
But I really wish I didn't have to deal with iTunes for video - I'm about to give up on video for that reason, actually.
IF SOMEONE KNOWS OF A NON-ITUNES WAY TO SYNC VIDEO PLEASE POST IT HERE!!!
~thanks and Good luck
12-7-07 I'll add that now the iPod won't play most of the podcasts I've downloaded. I used Miro and Media Monkey, both with Media Monkey's built in podcast functionality, and by moving the podcasts into my music. Neither way worked, either if the file was downloaded my Media Monkey or Miro. I tried subscribing to some podcasts with iTunes but it was a catastrophe so I gave up. It would be nice if even that worked in iTunes so I could watch video podcasts...
Also sometimes iTunes thinks it needs to re-format my iPod, then it forgets about it if I cancel out and re-connect.
I may "upgrade" to 1.03 firmware I hear is out, 1.02 locked some hard drives on.
And get ready for Quicktime to take over your PC. I found a Firefox guide where I finally got it to quit playing mp3's instead of letting me download them. You have to manually delete .dll files it puts in your Firefox folder. Just like iTunes, when you tell it not to do something using program "options" it just thinks your kidding and ignores you. Nice. So far I hate Apple even more than Microsoft.
Customer Review: This Apple iPod is an Instant Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Disclaimer - I base this review off of currently owing the Classic 80 gig, the mini 1 gig, the original iPod Nano 1 gig, Shuffle 1 gig and the original iPod 5 gig. And in the past I have owed the iPod 5th generation 30 gig, the iPod Photo 30 gig and an iPod Mini 4 gig that was lime green and got stolen.
I have owned the iPod classic 80 gig for about four months now and when I read other reviewer's thoughts about this model I was a little worried that it would not live up to expectations. But I made the purchase anyway and decided to make the best of it. The main reason that made the decision to purchase the Classic instead over the iPod Touch is that you get so much more memory for the money with the Classic. And I didn't feel that I much use for the applications that Apple had for the Touch, or the Iphone for that matter. And even with the addition of the Application section of the ITMS the Classic is still a better deal than any of the Touch models.
What makes the Classic worth buying? The screen is a lot clearer and cleaner to view than the previous iPod 5.5/5.0 generations of which I owned also. The metal front of the Classic is easier to keep clean and harder to damage than previous iPod generations have been. The touchpad on the Classic works really well, and is always sensitive to use. In fact, the game Phase that you can buy for the iPod Classic totally relies on the sensitivity of the Classic touchpad and it works great. Never stalls, reboots, slows down or crashes. If you read the first reviewer of the Classic he totally trashes this model iPod, although I have found out that this unit is very reliable and has plenty of space to fit all of your pics, podcasts, movies, games and of course music. The Coverflow use of the Classic software works very well even through many a reviewer it seem to believe that it doesn't load fast enough and is a little bulky for the processor to handle. True, depending on the number of albums that you have on the iPod Classic it takes a second for all of the graphics to load. Currently, I am using 10 gig of the 80 gig capacity and it doesn't bother me if the software needs a second or two to load all of the album pictures that Coverflow uses. Coverflow is really great and makes selecting your music very easy to use.
Also, I have read that other reviewers believe that the sound quality of the Classic was downgraded from the previous models but the must have some super sonic hearing because I can't tell the difference. The battery is also another amazing aspect of this unit because it has never ran out on me even during continuous use of a 7 hour cross country flight last week where I watched a 2 hour movie, played Phase for at least an hour, listened to an hour of an audiobook, watched three 20 minute Anderson Cooper Podcasts among others, looked at pictures and listened to music. Therefore, I used every single aspect of the iPod Classic for hours, numerous times and it has never given me a problem.
If you like buying products that are worth the money are going to add happiness and convenience to your life then the iPod classic is for you.
Customer Review: VERY HAPPY!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Ok so i just bought the i pod classic two days ago, After having originally bought the 16 gig i pod touch and returning it for the high price, the low capacity and the lack of external volume control. Before the classic i owned a 30 gig i pod video and let me just say i believe that this is a true step up! for having 50 more gigs of space its is just a little bit thinner which is great. also the aluminum finish in the front is very appealing and it seems like you can finally say goodbye to all the terrible scratching to the front of the i pod. The rear is still made from the ridiculously shiny and fingerprint/smudge/scratch prone material. all in all i give it a 9 out of 10 for looks. my only complaint is the back.
-Now for the actual i pod interface i really enjoy the cover flow but im having a lot of trouble with doubles of the same album picture coming up, and when i don't have the album name for a certain song all the songs that don't have album names are bunched together, which for me is definitely a minus because i now find myself using cover flow less. One thing i do really like is the whole split screen aspect, it isn't that big of a deal but it makes the i pod look really nice to have all the album artwork showing itself at random on the right side of the screen. also i haven't had any problems with my i pod lagging or moving slowly as some people are saying (i only have about 3000 songs and 40 something videos).
-The video quality on this i pod isn't that big of a leap from the old generation i pod except that this one has a much brighter screen and the videos are at a slightly higher resolution, also the battery life is phenomenal, in Two days i listened to about 5 hours of music and watched a good 3 hours of videos and still have 50% of the battery life remaining.
-Apple is really stripping down the boxes on the new generation i pods, you can no longer find an i tunes disc included and are required to download it from the internet. also in the box are the new i pod headphones (same from the i pod 5.5 g)(i also suggest getting better headphones for the i pod seeing as these wont last very long!) the Usb cable, 2 apple stickers, and a very small users guide.
-One gripe i do have about this device is the sensitivity of the scroll wheel, apple made it so that you have to press down really hard on it to get it to respond, when i first got it i thought i had gotten a broken one because i was so used to just lightly tapping on my last i pod, But it seems that after using it for a little while it either gets more sensitive or you get used to the added pressure to the point where it doesn't seem to have a problem at all. so don't give up on it right away when you notice this!
-ALL in all i am very happy with the purchase i have made. The battery life, The sound and the huge amount of storage is an amazing value for the price. if you are thinking about getting a new i pod or replacing an old one and need more than 16 gigs i really believe that you can't go wrong buying this i pod!