Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #684 in Consumer Electronics
• Colour: Black
• Brand: Apple
• Model: MB565ZO/A
• Released on: 2008-09-09
• Dimensions: 4.09" h x 2.44" w x .39" l, .31 pounds
• Native resolution: 2.5” (51x39 mm) colour screen displays
• Display size: 2.5

Manufacturer's Description

One size fits all.
With 120GB of storage, iPod classic can hold up to 30,000 songs, 150 hours of video, or 25,000 photos. That’s more than enough room for a day’s — or a lifetime’s — worth of entertainment. Available in quintessential silver or striking new black, iPod classic catches your eye with its sleek, all-metal enclosure composed of anodised aluminium and polished stainless steel.

	Meet a musical Genius. Say you’re listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. With a few clicks, the new Genius feature finds the songs in your library that go great together and makes a Genius playlist for you. You can listen to the playlist right away, save it for later, or even refresh it and give it another go. Count on Genius to create a mix you wouldn’t have thought of yourself. While you reacquaint yourself with the music you already own, let Genius introduce you to new music you’ll love. As you select songs in your library, the Genius sidebar displays songs from the iTunes Store that go great with it. The Genius sidebar won’t recommend songs already in your library, and you can preview and buy recommended songs directly from the sidebar.
	Hold everything. iPod classic gives you 120GB of storage capacity, good for up to 30,000 songs, 150 hours of video, 25,000 photos, or any combination. And you get up to 36 hours of battery life, so you can keep on rocking for a long, long time. With 120GB of space, iPod classic means you can always have your entire music and movie library with you. Carry it from the living room to a party in the backyard. Or take it on a cross-country road trip and never listen to the same song twice.
	Click to enjoy. Finding exactly what you want to watch or listen to is easy. Use the Click Wheel to browse by album art with Cover Flow or navigate your songs and videos by playlist, artist, album, genre, and more. You can also search for specific titles and artists. Want to mix things up? Click Shuffle Songs for a different experience every time.
	Watch movies and TV shows. The vivid 2.5-inch display makes video come alive. Purchase or rent movies, buy TV shows, and download video podcasts from the iTunes Store, then sync them to your iPod classic to watch anywhere, anytime. With titles from every major Hollywood studio, the iTunes Store makes it easy to rent your favourite films with a click. Standard-definition movie rentals are £2.49 for library titles and £3.49 for new releases. Rent a movie and you have 30 days to start watching it. Hit Play, and you have 24 hours to finish it — or play it as many times as you want. Rentals disappear when they expire, so they won’t take up space on your hard drive.
	Play iPod games. Put hours of fun at your fingertips. All iPod games are designed specifically for the iPod interface. The new iPod classic and iPod nano both come with the games Vortex and Klondike. Once you master those, why not pick up Monopoly, Uno, or Sudoku? Preview them free on the iTunes Store before you buy. With games on your iPod, it’s like carrying a whole arcade in your pocket.
	Share your photos. iPod classic uses iTunes to sync the photos you have in iPhoto on a Mac or Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Photoshop Album on a PC. View photo slideshows complete with music and transitions on iPod classic, or play them on a TV using an optional Apple component or composite AV cable.

Box Contents
iPod classic
Earphones
USB 2.0 cable
Dock adapter
Quick Start guide

Customer Reviews

From an apple hater, I've been wrong all these years. Still hate apple but love the IPOD
Firstly I used to be an apple hater, have always used Archos and creative labs and been very happy with both. Still thought as I've never meet a person who regrets buying an Ipod that there might be something in these players..So I put my money where my doubts were.
Firstly, my biggest hate for the IPOD is Itunes, I rip my music and already had thousand of tracks and really don't want to have to give a credit card to Itunes so that I can start transferring my music but you have to.. Now other than that the actual player is excellent. Once I got my head around the fact that as a non Itune guy that you can not just drag and drop your track onto you Ipod.

The player is light and sturdy and the head phones even more lightweight- firstly ditch the enclosed headphones and invest in a decent set of phones.
The player is excellent in the controls and style. Although I don't think you want this for Video invest in an archos for your films.
The sound of my MP3s is impressive and full, with GOOD VOLUME.
Some reviewers have said that the volume is an issue.. No the Ipod is loud you can set the maximum volume in the setting but this isn't the actual playing volume just the upper limit!! - whenever the Ipod is turned on it will start to broadcast at half volume by default, this is fine as a quick spin on your finger on the control wheel will put the volume to a level that is load enough to share the tunes with the person trying to sit next to you in silence. It will then stay there as you continue to play with the player.
As for the colour comments, gun metal black is the new true black and that is what this one is very macho. The mat black also is very smudge resistant.

PROS.
-Lots of accessories
-Excellent controls,
-Itunes (if you want to buy or download podcasts)
-Screen and sound quality is excellent
-Nice gunmetal black
-Very good battery life
-Good volume once you realise you need to give a quick flick
-I like the way Ipod pauses if you unplug your headphone so you don't miss a drop.


CONS
-Itunes (no option to avoid if you want to just use windows explorer)
-No drag and drop on any PC only on Itunes at home
-Screen not really good enough for watching movies (maybe TV shows or Videocasts)

Conclussion, I love the Ipod classic but am lukewarm over Itunes. However, I'm buying into Ipod not Itunes (try media monkey software for an alternative).

One Pod To Rule Them All
"Apple vs. all other vendors" banter aside... this is a brilliant piece of kit.

I was on the lookout for a jukebox player seeing as I made the transition from casual listening to complete and utter audiophilia. Consequently, I began to rip mp3s at a high bit rate 320kbps; enjoying the greater sound quality of the music (couldn't believe what I had been missing)... Sounds amazing through my system. This led to my library size increasing almost four-fold. So my little 8GB Creative ZEN (the credit card sized unit) was no longer of favour (that even couldn't fit everything I had in my library, albeit at smaller file sizes/bit rates as well!).

And then there's this little beauty.
It accomodates to my huge library. Plays music flawlessly. The album artwork/cover flow functions are gloriously displayed on a nice wide screen (however, instead of arranging covers by album, the iPod arranges them by artist... which, if there are quite a few tracks that you have which feature additional artists, this equals A LOT of the same cover). The screen also serves purpose for comfortable video/movie playback.

Of course there is that much documented problem about music "not sounding as good as" previous models, but to be quite honest - I notice little to no reduction in quality. EU Legislation dictates that volume limiters are now applied to protect you, the consumer, from doing damage to your beloved ear drums. So yes... it might not be as "loud" as a previous model, but be rest assured that there is definitely no reduction in "quality".
Your ears will thank you someday.

As it is a hard-drive based player... if you tend to delete a lot of music off and load a lot on frequently you can notice a reduction in menu speed; it's because the file system gets a tincy wincy bit cluttered - but that's just extra jargon.
To counteract this, you can restore the iPod to it's original state when purchased... or... defragment the iPod like you would your normal PC hard drive.
This keeps performance tip-top.

So overall... a great player... and in support of the other review stated here... the player is indeed NOT BLACK like the previous generation... it is like a CHARCOAL/OBSIDIAN TONE with a metallic sheen; nonetheless, it retains it's huge aesthetic appeal. Very pleasing to look at, hold, drool over etc. etc.

So all in all, I'd recommend this to anyone with a steadily increasing library, choc-full of high bitrate or lossless music.
Oh, and if you do decide to purchase it... for the love of whoever... don't drop the thing. It's pretty much 'game over' if you do (hard drive fragility and all that).

Downsides:-
- no FLAC support, again...
- hard drive vunerability.
- cover flow bloat (can be fixed with iTunes, but time-consuming).
- earphones, although outputting at the 2Hz -> 20,000Hz range STILL don't sound as good, recommended to replace them with an alternative.

Great for a large music collection
I have resisted the i-Pod todate because I do not like i-Tunes. So I have already mp3 players by others (a 40gb Creative Zen Touch - which only really works on mains after 3.5 years, a 32gb Zen for the car, an Archos 605 for video and internet). However, my music collection is too large for the Zens to cope with (The SD card expansion on the Creative Zen is not the answer because that does not integrate with the flash-drive's music library) and the Archos is simply not good enough at sound reproduction for music, in my opinion. So, against this background here is what I think:

1. You do not have to use i-Tunes. My media organiser of choice (after trying so many) is Media Jukebox and it had absolutely no problem recognising my new i-Pod and copying across my music library and cover art. (I should qualify this by saying that most of my music is ripped and what I do buy is in mp3 format from 7digital, so I have never used the one stop shop does it all "benefits" of i-Tunes).

2. The click-wheel navigation of the i-Pod is good for basic navigation but the Creative Zen system, I think, is actually a better method overall.

3. The screen display of the i-Pod is great and, to me, better than that on the Creative Zen. However, on neither will I be watching video, so we are only talking about cover art and navigation display here.

4. The headphones are rubbish (as were the ones with each of my previous players).

5. As others have noted, volume is limited but it goes loud enough for me with a pair of decent headphones.

6. It is very well built compared to all my other players.

7. Sound quality is very good, if not stunning. On direct comparison, I think my 32gb Creative Zen is better (a tighter bass and more openess), but both are really enjoyable to listen to.

8. I have bought a crystal case and wallet to help protect it from knocks, but be warned that cases for the 80gb and 160gb previous generation do not necessarily fit the new 120gb perfectly.

9. If you have a large music collection, and want a quality mp3 player, then this now represents excellent value for money. If the i-Pod is as well built and reliable as my Apple Macbook then it ought to keep me happy for some years.