How do you even start a review about the iPod Classic? There are so many reviews already but is it all hype?

When I purchased my iPod from Misco for £152 a couple of months ago, I also purchased a metal/acrylic case to protect it. I took the iPod out the box and without touching it I slid it into it's little protector. The reason I did this is because my wife bought the iTouch and the stainless steel back was scratched and scuffed within a day. As long as I don't drop it, it should still be brand new looking should I sell it later on.

Once you install iTunes it will ask for information about you to set up an account and it will register your iPod's serial number with your computer. It will also ask you if it should scan for media. Personally I hate programs that do that so I opted to add media myself. Once finished you can start adding MP3 or ripping your CD collection, there's also the option to buy from iTunes. I started adding MP3 albums by dragging and dropping them into my iTunes library. For some reason the latest update doesn't allow me to do that so you have to go into the file menu and select "add file or folder".

If your album tracks have become scattered everywhere as single files then you need to highlight all of them using the left mouse button and the ctrl key then right-click one file and select "get info". You will be presented with a window that has some or no album information (MP3 tags). You will have to enter the missing info yourself. Once this is done correctly, all the files should appear as one album file in iTunes.

The iPod itself is if solid construction but it's a little heavy compared to other MP3/4 players. I suppose it's due to it being made of aluminium and not tacky plastic. The screen is very clear and has about 10 levels of brightness. Battery life is quite good and I managed to watch two movies and a couple of hours of music on a recent flight. As the battery is built in, I wonder what happens when it reaches the end of it's life, like all rechargeables. As most batteries normally have a four year life or 1000 charges, that's all you should expect from the life of your iPod. You can be sure it will be uneconomical to change the battery compared to a new iPod.

Sound quality is quite good but it doesn't go as loud as other players I've tried. I believe this is deliberate by Apple and the government to protect our ears, bless them! On the flip side of the coin, the sound does not go completely off. "Why would you want the sound to go completely off when you have a pause button?", Apple said to a customer. Because the lowest sound is still too loud to listen to music in bed, "THAT'S WHY!".

There are still quite a few little issues that Apple can improve on and I wonder why after so many generation of iPod's that they haven't.

I know of alternate and much better programs out there that addresses a couple of the issues (so why doesn't Apple?), but using them invalidates your measly one year warranty. It's completely reversible, so it's worth a try after a year isn't it?

I forgot to mention what program I use to convert video. I use WinAVI Video Converter from www.winavi.com. They do other conversion programs but this particular one has conversion for iPod, PSP, 3GP & MP4. You can....wait a minute I might just review this separately. :)