So after ten years, the time finally came when I had to replace my old version. Primarily because it was full of music I did not want to get rid of but also because it was struggling to hold it's charge. On looking into buying a new ipod, I encountered my first issue. My issue is not so much with the device, rather the range. Your options range from the Nano, Shuffle or Touch which have anything between 2gb and 16gb or the Classic which has 160gb. Now it has taken me ten years to use 20gbs and i'm fairly certain that there aren't enough pieces of music in existence to fill 160gbs.

Now the experienced amongst will say that the latest Classic, the 7th Generation has a colour screen and therefore the capacity to store movies for you to watch on the go. Fair point, however the screen as with all the other Classics is 2.5 inches. You are not going to be viewing in comfort on that. Sure you can plug it into a TV but then you are losing the portable capability, so what is the use in that.

Now it may seem a bit of a peculiar complaint, how can you have too much of a good thing. Well the problem is big memory size means big price size. You will pay in the region of £200 for either a black or silver version. That is the same price I paid 10 years ago, only classic cars hold their value like that. No matter how good a product it is, unless their is some sort of dramatic improvement in its capability, then I don't see how Apple can justify the price.

In the box you will recieve the usual headphones, a USB cable and a dock adapter. It measures 103.5 x 61.8 x 10.5mm, weighs 140 grams and has a battery life of 36 hours for music or 6 hours for film. So the Lord of the Rings Trilogy is a non starter. It can be fully charged within 4 hours and operation as always is conducted through the wheel on the devices lower front under the display.

A nice touch is the Cover Flow facility which will display the albums artwork which does work well, even on such a small screen. Also included are a couple of games. The sound quality is as it has always been very good and it could not be easy to use for listening or transferring media from your PC with iTunes.

Given my experiences with my previous ipod which still works, I have high expectations of this one. Apple are renowned for the premium quality they place on their products and I feel confident in this. It is just that price which does stick in the throat a little. But if you can look beyond that, then you will enjoy many hours with this device tucked away in your pocket.