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With 80GB or 160GB of storage, iPod classic gives your music and video room to move. It also has plenty of energy (up to 40 hours of audio playback), good looks (a sleek, all-metal design), and a great personality (a brand-new interface with Cover Flow). In other words, iPod classic makes an ideal companion. Cover Flow
If a picture says a thousand words, think of what all the album art in your collection might say. With Cover Flow on iPod classic, you can flip through your music to find the album you want to hear. Use the Click Wheel to browse music by album cover, then select an album to flip it over and see the track list. 
With 80GB or 160GB of storage, iPod classic gives your music and video room to move. View iPod classic dimensions. | 
Up to 40 hours of audio playback in the palm of your hand. View larger. | 
Thinner and more compact than ever. | Music
Use the Click Wheel to adjust volume, navigate songs, browse in Cover Flow, or explore the Music menu by playlist, artist, album, song, genre, composer, and more. Want to mix things up? Click Shuffle Songs. iPod classic makes your music look as good as it sounds, thanks to its big, bright, color display. Movies
Buy movies from the iTunes Store and you can sync them to your iPod classic to watch anywhere, anytime. The gorgeous 2.5-inch display makes your movies pop. And iPod classic keeps you entertained for up to 7 hours. Long flight or darkened room? Adjust the brightness for even more video playback time. TV Shows
There's always something good on iPod classic. Browse thousands of episodes of your favorite TV shows on the iTunes Store, buy them for just $1.99 each, then sync them to iPod classic. Watch last night's episodes this morning, or buy a whole TV series and play a pocket-size marathon. Podcasts
The iTunes Store features thousands of free video and audio podcasts, including indie favorites and offerings from such big names as ABC News, Comedy Central, ESPN, PBS, NPR, and many more. Browse and subscribe to podcasts, then sync them to your iPod classic. You can even play video podcasts on TV using an optional Apple component or composite AV cable. Audiobooks
The digital shelves of the iTunes Store are stocked with thousands of audiobooks--including exclusives like the entire Harry Potter series--so you can catch up on your reading wherever iPod classic takes you. iPod classic recognizes where you left off and bookmarks your place. You can even adjust the reading speed to suit you. Games
Put hours of fun at your fingertips. iPod classic comes with three games--Vortex, iQuiz, and Klondike--and you can download more from the iTunes Store for $4.99 each. All iPod games are designed specifically for the iPod interface. And all of them look great on the 2.5-inch color display. Photos
iPod classic holds up to 25,000 photos you can sync from your Mac or PC via iTunes. Use the Click Wheel to scroll through photo thumbnails the same way you scroll through song titles. To see a photo full screen, click the center button. You can even view photo slideshows--complete with music and transitions--on iPod classic or on a TV using an optional Apple component or composite AV cable. Search
With up to 40,000 songs on your iPod classic, you need an easy way to search your collection. A built-in search function lets you use the Click Wheel to type out the name of the song, artist, album, audiobook, or podcast you're looking for. iPod classic returns results instantly as you select letters. Extras
Calendars, contacts, and a clock appear in the Extras menu, along with a few more handy items. Take the screen lock, for example. Spin the Click Wheel to choose a four-digit combination and protect your iPod classic from prying eyes. If you forget your combination, just reset when you sync. Or use the built-in stopwatch to log your best times.
 Customer Reviews 
Not worthy of the Apple or iPod name
Rating: 1
The iPod Classic is a profound disappointment. For some reason, Apple has locked down the iPod to eliminate third-party video output, so don't expect it to work with your old cables, video docks, etc. Secondly, the audio output is reportedly inferior to the previous generation; however, I can't speak to that directly, because the firmware is so buggy, I can't even load my iTunes library on it. The latest firmware (1.0.1 as of this writing) supposedly fixed a bunch of bugs, but you wouldn't know it from where I'm standing. Apple support claims it's my library, but my library worked fine on my 5.5gen iPod. I was able to get the music on it in manual mode, but that's not an acceptable solution.
Apple has remained typically silent on the issue, so there's no telling when (or if) these MAJOR flaws will be fixed. I can't think of a decent reason to cripple the video output that was present on the previous generations, and Apple hasn't deigned to give us a reason. I'd expect such shoddy engineering and treatment from Microsoft, but coming from Apple, it's a tremendous disappointment. It's clear that Steve is more infatuated with the flash-based players, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's quite a while before the iPod Classic becomes a worthy successor to its ancestors. Until then, AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Good, not excellent
Rating: 4
I will compare this product with 4G IPod 40GB that I have owned, loved and heavily used for almost 3 years. I have owned the product being reviewed for 3 weeks now.
1. What is about the same:
- the sound quality. I did side-by-side comparison by playing the same songs through powerful sound system. The difference in sound was marginal;
- available equalizer settings;
- the look.
2. What's become worse.
- the clickwheel used to be better in 4th generation - bigger, more sensitive and smoother;
- the screen could be seen without backlight. I could conserve battery by keeping the backlight off and still clearly see the titles of tracks being played. In the new IPod, once the backlight is off (say, 10 seconds after the last touch to the clickwheel), you can't see anything on the screen. When the next song begins, you don't see the title
- the response when navigating through menus became slower.
- there are bugs in the software that handles the contacts. In my case I was able to import contacts from Windows Vista, but on many occasions the fields are mixes up (work phone shows as home one e.t.c.). Nice feature of showing contacts with pictures doesn't work well too. Photos are displayed too small to be recognizable, many pictures are shown damaged.
3. What's become better.
- the disk space (this is an obvious point)
- the new model has gapless playback - huge improvement for my taste.
- color screen nicely shows artwork, the fonts are very good.
- battery life is much longer.
4. What's new (note: comparing to 4th generation!)
- photo playback. The feature is fun, but is not really useful. The reason is that IPod can store photos in a directory tree of 1 level of nesting. If your directory tree is deeper, all pictures from 2nd and consequent levels will be collapsed in one folder under the 1st level directory name. In my case it makes it next to impossible to find the right pictures among 4 or 5 thousand of photos.
- video playback - I don't care for this feature and haven't tested it.
The bottom line is: upgrade if you are running out of disk space (as I did) or if your current model doesn't have gapless playback which is important for you (as it is for me). If I had 5th gen Ipod with sufficient disk size, I would not upgrade right now.
Hold everything
Rating: 4
Finally, after holding out for years, my dream has come true: an iPod with storage capacity exceeding 100GBs. At last I can store every note of my music collection into this MP3 player with ample room for videos and photos. Although this is marketed as 160 GB, the capacity is really 148 once you activate it, so be warned.
I agree with some of the other reviews: the iPod classic is slow when responding to the click wheel. Plus, it doesn't always load the album artwork quickly. Even so, I can live with these two minor flaws. I'm just happy to have an iPod that not only can carry 148 GB of music, but also has extended battery life. Plus, the 160 GB is thinner than the 60 GB iPod I previously had. In addition, I have Vista on my PC, and I was able to plug it in and set it up with no glitches whatsoever.
I notice that the iPods are no longer packaged with a power adapter. What's up with that? Has Apple gone cheap on its consumers? For the amount of money we consumers are paying, we should have ALL the equipment we need to use our iPod with no hassle or inconvenience.
Still, I'm glad I made this investment. Is it perfect? No. But it's good enough to make this consumer happy for years to come.
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