I have recently used the bulk of the past few months Dooyoo earnings to buy a brand new 160gb ipod classic, the plan being to over haul the stereo system in the house with the ipod providing the storage and then a docking system and speakers to provide the volume which will free up some space cuirrently occiupied by a large and almost antique stack system,

You buy the classic for the amount of music it can hold, we have over the past couple of weeks transferred pretty much our entire cd and download library across to it and we have not even used a third of the available memory, that is over 500 full or partial albums according to the info on itunes and there is plenty space for more music to be added. You can also upload audio books, video and podcasts through your itunes account, I cannot see us adding an video content as the main drawback of the classic is the relatively small screen compared with other apple products like the touch or more importantly the ipad which is where I watch video content. For us I can see that I will download audio books however I have never got into the whole podcast thing.

There are two colour versions, classic white or black, I opted for the black front and both come with a steel back, it is advisable to get a protective cover otherwise it will show the scratches. In the box you also get a set of basic headphones and a pc lead so don't get suckered into buying one of these even if Amazon will bundle it up as part of a package, you will just be buying a spare. The lead once connected to your pc and ipod will begin charging and also will automatically synch with your itunes account so set up is very easy, that is unless you do not have automatic synch set up on itunes and have opted for the manual option.

Navigation around the ipod is through the wheel and while at first I found it rather retro after the joys of touch screen technology it is very easy and you can zip through your albums and playlists with ease. Charge wise it is pretty quick and the joys of a fresh battery means other than when synching it has not needed recharging yet after about four gym sessions and a train journey so it is pretty good with regards to battery life.

Sound wise it is pretty good although there are limitatioons as the bud earphones are not as good as the full headphones I tend to use for longer periods of listening. It also comes with a couple of pre loaded games but these hold no interest for me.

This ipod rightly deserves the name classic and the memory capacity is very impressive, you can store 40k songs apparently and that represents a pretty good record collection in my opinion. Highly recommended. Expect to pay between £180-190 on Amazon with free p&p.