juan franco

Pros:

nice look

long batter life

tons of music

pleny of good earphone/bud options if you dont like ipods earbud

durable

cons:

no external memory

no external batter

you have to baby it because of the screen

scroll wheel either moves too fast or too slow

i paid an arm an a leg and then the touch screen cam out ! lol

search is kind hard

converting video almost isnt worth the time

I admittedly was not going to purchase the 2007 160GB iPod Classic when I first saw it; my reaction was along the lines of “Apple will just release a 200GB+ model next year,” so I decided to wait for a model I believed would be released in 2008; I was wrong. When Apple released their 120GB iPod Classic, I ordered it right away, but fearing that my music collection would grow faster than the space on my iPod, I picked up the 2007 160GB iPod Classic on clearance roughly two weeks after purchasing the 120GB model. (I’ve since purchased the new 2009 160GB Model, which is my favorite iPod to date.)

First, it’s worth noting that this iPod carries the status of the “worst selling iPod ever,” at least the 160GB Model does. However, the capacity of this iPod is simply unmatched. The 160GB model was two years ahead of its time capacity-wise, and if it weren’t for all of the bugs that these iPods had before the firmware update, they’d easily be on par with this year’s 160GB model.

In spite of all of its flaws, the 160GB iPod Classic from 2007 really is a nice iPod. Up until this year, if you wanted an iPod that was larger than 120GB, this was the only model available to you without performing unauthorized modifications to the device. What’s more, the fact that this iPod doubles as an external hard drive is a major plus in my book, because it allows me to carry fewer devices on me.

As another reviewer noted, there is a firmware update that fixes many of the problems with this iPod; however, that fact that it needs a firmware update at all, and that problems were so rampant on the 160GB model make this device seem very poorly designed, and very un-Apple like, which is probably why they dropped it in the first place. This brings me to the iPod’s caveats, and there are plenty of them.

First, Cover Flow is outright slow. The simple solution would be to not use Cover Flow, and to browse your iPod using another method. The second caveat is the fact that on many of these iPods, the hard drive would continue to spin even after the device was turned “off,” effectively draining the battery and reducing the life of the hard drive. My solution was just to keep this constantly “docked” to my computer, which effectively kept it from running off of the battery. While the firmware update has fixed this problem on most 160GB iPod Classics from 2007, every so often I run into someone whose still wrangling with battery issues. Another problem is the semi-unresponsive Clickwheel, which was also fixed in the firmware update, although compared to the 120GB model from 2008 and the new 160GB model released this September, there’s still a noticeable lag in the Clickwheel, albeit far less noticeable than before the firmware update. The last real caveat though, the one that irks me the most and caused me to purchase the 120GB model from 2008, is the lack of “Genius” functionality on this iPod. I realize that “Genius” didn’t exist when this iPod was released, but I was a bit disappointed that Apple didn’t issue a firmware update to add Genius support to this iPod, and to further improve the responsiveness of the Clickwheel. A short list of pros and cons can be found below:

Pros: Largest iPod Capacity-wise (sharing this honor with the new model that just came out,) longest battery life of any iPod, (the new 160GB model has a slightly shorter battery life because it uses a slightly smaller battery,) doubles as an external hard drive.

Cons: Bugs are common and may or may not be fixed via a firmware update, more expensive than newer iPods, no “Genius” feature or firmware update for said feature, and the dual-platter hard drive (160GB model) has more moving parts than the single-platter models and thus, twice as much of a chance of breaking on you.

The verdict: If 36 hours of music or 6 hours of video at a time are enough for you, go with the new 2009 160GB iPod Classic. It’s less expensive than the 2007 model, more reliable, and more feature-rich overall, not to mention the fact that it has “Genius” support and is slightly smaller because it’s a single-platter model. If you absolutely must have 40 hours of music or 7 hours of video on your iPod, go with the 160GB model from 2007, but be aware of the problems that you may run into, and seriously ask yourself if that battery life is worth spending an additional $350.95. Unless you spend most of your life on transcontinental flights, the new 160GB model that just came out is far superior to this iPod in every way imaginable. All in all, I give this device four out of five stars, because even with the problems that it had, up until this month, it was the only iPod that could hold many people’s entire music collections, and it still has the longest battery life of any iPod, which is an honor that cancels out the “honor” of being the “worst selling iPod ever.” Again, unless you need that extra battery capacity or collect iPods, go with the new 160GB model over this one and save yourself some cash.