Apple iPod classic (160GB)

 Print    Email     Bookmark     Share

del.icio.us

Yahoo My Web

Furl

Digg this

Google bookmarks

Facebook

close this

Add to My Products

 I want it »
 I got it »

Product added.
Click here to see your [Got It/Want It] list

close this

• Overview
• 
• Review
• 
• Specs
• 
• Compare
• 
• Images
• 
• User Reviews
• 
• Discuss
• 

Features

The iPod classic has very few new features to talk about. Support for video and music playback, as well as photos, podcasts, and video games, are virtually unchanged.

The iPod classic supports H.264 or MPEG-4 video in MOV, MP4, or M4V file formats, with a maximum resolution of 640x480 at as much as 30 frames per second. You can buy videos through the iTunes online store or import them into iTunes and convert them for playback. (Many third-party software video converters also do a great job converting videos for the iPod.) The classic supports many of the video features we look for in portable video players. For instance, the classic can recognize and skip between the DVD-like chapter markers embedded in QuickTime movie files. It also does a dependable job automatically resuming video playback at the point at which you last left off. Closed captioned subtitles can now be switched on and off for video files that support them.

The iPod classic comes packaged with a proprietary USB cable, a set of earbuds, and a universal dock fitting.

Looking past the obvious big-ticket improvements, the new classic includes some small touches that are easy to miss. Apple's music shuffle function, for instance, has made a subtle evolution, now letting you easily engage and disengage the shuffle function on the fly, with just a few clicks of the scroll wheel's center button. By placing the shuffle setting options (Shuffle Song, Shuffle Album, or Shuffle Off) in a song's Now Playing window, Apple is effectively giving you the ability to randomize songs until you find an artist you like--a lazy listener's dream come true. We're also happy to see that Apple has bundled three video games into both the iPod classic and the nano, giving us yet another way to stay distracted.

Apple's audio file format support remains the same. Copy-protected AAC files purchased through iTunes are supported, of course, as well as MP3, Apple lossless, AIFF, WAV, and Audible files. We're happy to see that despite the iPhone's unique file management requirements, the iPod classic allows for manually adding and deleting music and video files without the hassles of playlist syncing. The classic can also double as a USB hard drive in a pinch.

While the iPod classic is a top-tier product, we long for some additional features, including the ability to use the headphone jack as a composite-video output, allowing photos and videos to be played to your television set without a third-party interface. While we can understand removing the little-used AV output feature to save on construction costs, we're even more surprised that Apple has rendered all of the recently released iPods incompatible with a number of third-party 5G video accessories as well. If you're hoping to use a new nano or classic with an existing video dock, be sure to check that the product explicitly states it is compatible with the iPod classic. Apple's own Universal iPod Dock (S$88 (US$64.71)) and component AV cable (S$88 (US$64.71)) are guaranteed to work, of course.

Plus, there's our standard list of long-neglected iPod features: FM radio, line-input recording, SD memory expansion, custom EQ, and native support for WMA and subscription music services. We're not holding our breath.

• Most Popular

• Upcoming

What's Hot

Latest Downloads