shaqwadecombo's Full Review: Apple iPod classic Sixth Gen. Black (80 GB, MB147L...
With so many different MP3 players in existence today, it is hard to tell which is the best of them all. Most larger sized MP3 players require a fairly large investment of money; usually $200 or more. The iPod Classic, as of 2008, stands to be the best of all the MP3 players available. So without further ado, the Good, the Bad, and the Comparison (Why you should buy this iPod over other products).
The Good:
In my experience, this iPod has been golden. In over a year's use, the iPod has never froze nor skipped at all. Battery life has been excellent (the specs from Apple's website boasting 30 hours of battery life is not an exaggeration). Even with video, the iPod does last around 5 hours or so. The screen is extremely bright, which makes watching movies fairly enjoyable. The scroll wheel, as usual, makes navigating through thousands of songs very easy.
Video is a cool add-on. The brightness of the screen adds to the experience; the nice part of the iPod is that you can resume movies from where you left off before; in other words, if you are watching a movie, then switch to your music, and go back to that movie, it will resume from the same location. This is an excellent feature!
iTunes; I used to detest it and loved Windows Media Player, but after using it for the iPod, it's become much nicer than Windows Media Player. iTunes is more user-friendly and allows for easy customization.
The Bad:
Cover flow; Apple's newest feature allows you to scroll through album covers and is a new way to navigate through albums. However, cover flow's weakest link is the fact that the covers take 4 or 5 seconds to load. Before they load onto the screen, the user simply sees a grey music symbol with the name of the album below. As Apple's iPods have been extremely user friendly and sleek when using, Cover Flow has done the opposite. Even after waiting 4 to 5 seconds, if a user scrolls very fast through the albums, then he/she may find that a couple of covers haven't loaded yet. While it isn't a huge problem, it would have been nice for Apple to have fine-tuned the feature before adding it.
Also, I feel the games are a bore on this new iPod series. Classic games such as brick and solitaire are removed, and the new games have never been heard of. Vortex? Klondike? (Luckily iQuiz is back, with several variations. Its always fun to quiz yourself to see how well you know your music).
The screen isn't the biggest. Watching TV shows is nice on the iPod due to the fact that the size of TV shows are in standard resolution. However, with movies, the user often times has to watch in wide-screen. While it is great that the iPod allows you to do both, watching wide-screen leads to much eye strain, as in order to fit the wide-screen picture on the iPod, vertical height of the picture is reduced.
Scratches; don't worry, your screen will be, for the most part, safe. However, the back of the iPod gets scratched very quickly. Its unfortunate to see an item as sleek as the iPod get scratched so fast.
The Comparison:
Why should you buy this instead of the iPod touch, or Microsoft Zune? Well, because honestly, its the best option you have at this point.
The iPod touch is very user friendly with its touch screen, but its price and lack of memory leaves it way behind the iPod classic. This 80 GB iPod classic will cost you $250, while the smallest version of the iTouch, which has 8 GB (one-tenth the memory), is $300, or $50 more. The iTouch with the largest memory (32 GB) $500. Therefore, until the iTouch gets more memory and costs less, you're better off sticking with an iPod.
The Zune is probably the biggest non-Apple competitor of the iPod. While the Zune's screen is much larger than the iPod's, there are several advantages to owning an iPod. First off, buying an iPod allows you to buy countless accessories for it at nearly any store. Finding accessories for a Zune or another non-Apple brand MP3 player...a more daunting task. Secondly, the iPod allows for much more customization; that is to say, online, there are so many more products for the iPod than they're are for the Zune. Through a quick Google search, you can find so many video converters (convert DVD's to the iPod format, Youtube videos to the iPod format, etc.) And finally, iPod's utilize Apple's iTunes Music Store, which still remains the most comprehensive music marketplace.
All in all, the iPod Classic remains the best option on the market.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250 Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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