Apple iPod classic review

Apple iPod classic Review

Reviewed by: Nate Lanxon

Reviewed on: 18 September 2007

Almost a full two years since its last full-size iPod, Apple has unleashed the iPod classic. Coming in 80GB and 160GB capacities -- costing £159 and £229 respectively -- the classic can hold a massive archive of music and video. There's no need to pick and choose which music goes with you, even if you rip CDs at the very highest lossless quality. We wasted no time in stress-testing the classic to within millimetres of its life. The classic is available now from Apple stores or the company's Web site.

Design
The glossy and easily scratched faceplate of previous models has been replaced with an attractive matte texture, either in black or silver -- white is no more. The Click Wheel too has been steered from shiny gloss to matte, the result being a less scratch-prone finish. The reflective silver casing is unchanged though, and still easily scuffable -- seven days into the classic being used as our 'full-time' MP3 player, several scratches had appeared.

An unchanged 64mm (2.5-inch) 320x240-pixel full-colour screen still consumes the top half of the player's front. The new iPod nano's screen has the same pixel count in a smaller display, leaving us feeling a little left out -- why not up the classic's resolution a notch?

The iPod classic sports the same screen as its predecessor

Features
The most exciting new feature is Cover Flow. You've seen it in action with iTunes -- it's that arty way of browsing your CD collection by the cover art. We've long hoped it would come to the iPod, and now it has. It works just like in iTunes, only it's now on a white background instead of black. You'll need to ensure most of your music files have album art embedded or you'll see a lot of generic grey album covers floating around. Browsing Cover Flow is easy with the Click Wheel and, hell, it's darn pretty too!

A new UI splits the main menu screens into two halves: the left half contains the traditional blue-on-white menu, while the right contains floating album art. Artwork slowly moves around the right-hand side of the screen as you navigate through menus. This is all well and good unless you've got, shall we say, 'Grandma-unfriendly' album covers floating around while demonstrating the interface to friends.

In fact, album art is used widely in the classic. In addition to Cover Flow and floating menu art, small covers sit beside albums as you browse through artists. Floating menu art doesn't appear in these menus, so there's plenty of room. Art is much more attractively displayed on the 'now playing' screen, in as much as it's slightly larger than on previous models and a reflection is displayed below it.

Double-take: album art and menus united