I need a new mp3 player, and I figured I might as well get an iPod Classic because of the ridiculous storage space, but poking around the Internet has revealed a host of complaints about it (wiki article here). I’ve been using the Shuffle, which is fine for the most part, but I’m always stuck with the playlist I decide upon before leaving the house. Plus it’s impossible to manage my podcasts.
I suppose I could get the Nano. I don’t have THAT much music, although that is partly because I haven’t taken the time to rip all my CDs onto my computer. Or the iTouch, although I don’t know how much I’ll use all those other features. I’ve heard you can add a lot of 3rd party stuff to the iTouch, which sounds interesting. The thing is, I’d like to use my iPod to store all my crap - music, photos, and videos - which is why the Classic appealed to me: the immense storage space. But if the thing itself is crap, I dunno.
I’m not really looking for an iPod alternative. I’ve already become accustomed to using iPods and iTunes, and I’m too lazy to try anything else. I’m just wondering if any Dopers are using the Classic and are happy with it. (I have to say, the iTouch is really tempting - it looks neat and shiny and pretty - but I’m not sure how practical a purchase it would be.)
I’ve had two - neither lasted more than a year. I guess I’m hard on them - the only reason I have one is to play whatever I want in the car on long trips, so I keep them in the car. But I will not buy another.
I’ve had mine for about four years, so it’s really not the same thing as the “new classics” at all… but it is still going after four years. After about two years of being taken on walks and road trips, it has now been honorably retired to the iPod-docking speakers in my living room, which serve as my sound system. I still take it on car trips.
I should have made it clearer in the OP - I was specifically talking about 6th generation Classics, since those are the ones on the market right now. My friends all have older ones and are perfectly happy with them.
I have to say, the more I read about the iTouch, the more tempting it is to just get one of those.
I bought mine 9 months ago and haven’t had any problems with it, but if you can afford it, the Touch is pretty sweet. I like the storage capacity of mine too much to switch though. The only problem I’ve seen others having is with damaging the screen; I didn’t unpack mine until I had a case for it.
There are two things that would stop me from buying an iPod of any ilk. (1) No user serviceable battery. This basically puts a finite life on your iPod of 3-5 years, IIRC. (2) No on/off switch. I was leaving for a pretty long trip on an airplane, and my iPod froze before I listened to the first song. Since I couldn’t pop out the battery, or turn it on/off I had to wait until the battery drained to use it again. Pretty damn annoying when you are leaving for a 5-8 hour trip.
You can change the battery yourself. Battery stores have them available, along with tools and directions to open the iPod. I haven’t done it myself yet, as my battery’s lasted a lot longer than I expected it to, but I see no reason to pay Apple $50 which I can do it myself for $15.
I’ve got an iPod Classic (160 Gb), which I use primarily for long trips, watching movies in hotel rooms, etc. Video out works fine with the new cable, and the battery life is ridiculously long. I listened to 8 hours of audiobooks on my last long drive, and never bothered to plug it in to charge. When I got home, I checked the battery and it was still well more than half charged.
My Classic’s never hung, but my 5G has once or twice. The instructions linked above took care of the problem right away. I have heard, by the way, that hangs and freezes are more likely when the iPod is completely full. I try to keep a little empty space for swap files and anything else the OS might have in mind, and it seems to work. This could be the power of suggestion.
This is somewhat off topic, but I have a theory about Apple’s iPod battery policy. I think they’re trying to recover the old batteries to make sure they’re disposed of properly, to avoid future liability. They’ve taken the same approach with the battery in the MacBook Air.
I’ve had my 30G 5th gen for a little over a year. I bought it just before the 6th gen Classics were released. No problems so far. And I’m pretty hard on mine, assuming that frequently syncing it is hard on it (as someone once told me was the case). I listen to podcasts, so I sync mine every day, sometimes more than once.
My daughter has had her 80G Classic for 2 1/2 years, I think. Again, no problems.
After waffling for hours and reading way too many reviews on the Classic, Nano, and Touch, I decided to get the Nano. :smack: Originally I wasn’t even considering it because of the lack of storage space, but there were too many negative reviews about the Classic (6g) for me to feel comfortable purchasing it. Plus the hard drive thing gave me a bit of pause - I use my iPods harshly and I dunno how well a hard drive would stand up to such wear and tear. I was reeeeeeeeeeeally tempted to get a Touch, but in the end I decided it wasn’t worth the money. Anyway, my current music collection will fit on the 8G Nano with room to spare, and hopefully in a few years Apple will come out with a flash drive-based ipod with more storage space that’s cheaper than the Touch.
I like the Nanos… I have worked with both the current gen and last gen models (I prefer the slim last gen model as I don’t use it for video). They seem to hold up decently well.
I’ve had my 5th gen (maybe 4th) 30GB iPod for several years with no problems. I had a 4GB Del Pocket DJ before that and it was a piece of shit.
I would imagine that the 6th gen iPod is not any better or worse than any other similar MP3 player out there.
I guess it all comes down to whether you believe in the wisdom of crowds when it comes to buying these things or if you think there is some hidden gem product out there that would be a better purchase.
Can I ask you a question about this? I’ve been thinking about getting a 2 GB iPod so that I can listen to podcasts while I walk. What problems do you have with managing your podcasts? Is it because you have other things besides podcasts on there and it’s difficult to navigate without a screen?
I have a question along the same lines…since I’ve added podcasts to my new Shuffle, I can’t get any of the music to play, even though it claims it’s still on there. This is my first iPod-y thing, and I really have no idea what I’m doing…but I do love to be able to listen to This American life and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell me…for hours on end!
I bought an 80GB Classic a few months ago, when my 30GB iPod Photo (4th Gen) died. (I never filled the old one more than halfway.)
The battery life seems ridiculously long on the new one, but that’s probably because I compare it to the old one, which had a failing battery, so I got in the habit of keeping my iPod plugged in as much as possible. The other feature that I love is that it keeps track of how many times I’ve skipped a song. That field was present in iTunes before, but it wasn’t functional.
I have several gripes about the new one:[ul]
[li]It’s less responsive. I often have to go all the way around the wheel before it registers that I’m trying to move the selection. It also hesitates while it loads album art as I go past menu entries.[/li][li]There are a few songs that it won’t play properly. The one that I notice most, it plays the first ten seconds, then skips to the next song, every time.[/li][li]The volume doesn’t go as low. I use efficient headphones. With the old iPod, turning it all the way down silenced it; I listened in my office at one-pixel-width volume. Now “zero” is louder than the old one-pixel volume.[/li][li]The album art is shown obliquely, with a reflection at the bottom. It looks cool, at first. But unlike the old one, you can’t press the center button a few times to fill the screen and see it without special effects. Also, when it plays a song without art, it uses half the screen to show a placeholder image anyway, instead of letting the text use that space like the old one did in that situation.[/li][li]The “screen saver”. If it’s not plugged in, the screen reverts after a few seconds to a digital clock. To see the information about what’s playing, you have to touch the wheel. This was particularly annoying when I shared my iPod with the person next to me on a flight–I had to touch the wheel to show her the song info, every song. I worried that running the backlight so much would impact my battery life.[/li][/ul]
I have other complaints too (such as songs not transferring to the iPod), but I think they’re related more to iTunes than the iPod itself.
My friends all have older ones and are perfectly happy with them.