I bought my first iPod when I was 17, when MP3 players became a 'must have' in my school and my old Creative Zen just wasn't cutting the fashion chic any more. Back then, I started with one of the old school bigger, brick like iPod classics, and when it died on me two years later (scroll bar went) I replaced it with this model.

First, the good points. The memory space available on these is massive; I've never managed to get past about 50% full and I have a lot of music. Clearly not as much as some people though as I have friends who have filled countless maximum memory iPods and have to constantly reupdate them with new CDs and stuff. I couldn't do that myself, it'd do my head in! Size wise, the iPod classic fits pretty nicely into your hand and is easy to hold and to use. It has a circular scroll bar that can take some getting used to but once you have it, everything is quickly accessible through it. Music can be organised and played by a variety of categories such as 'artist' and 'album'. Generally I keep mine on artist as I find it easier to find the music I want this way. There's also a shuffle songs function and a 'genius' function. I have no idea what the latter does as it doesn't work on my ipod or my itunes. I think you need to have all your songs categorised for it to work properly.

iPod classics also have the ability to put photos, videos, podcasts and documents on them. I've been able in the past to put photos and podcasts on it (took them all off eventually though as they weren't doing much for me) but I have never been able to get it to work as a video player or document storage device. I have (well, had, see the next paragraph) videos that are in the correct format and play in iTunes but don't even show up on my iPod when it's been synced. This has been the case with both this ipod and the original one I bought; and I remember being bitterly disappointed when my friends could get their videos to play but I couldn't. Now it's not much of a problem but it is annoying not to be able to use the thing to it's full capabilities. Another disappointment for me has been that it seems after 2 years the scroll circle goes - I'm not heavy handed with my iPod and I take care with it but this has happened on both of them now.

All iPods, iPads, iPhones work off the Apple software 'iTunes'. Now, this is fine if you like the software... but I don't. I find it hard to navigate and every new update seems to bring something else useless into the mix. This brings me to my biggest bug bear with anything Apple related and why I will probably not replace my iPod when it dies with another Apple product. If you have, say, 2500 songs in your iTunes, and your hard drive wipes and breaks, then you can never update your iPod again. Just after christmas my laptop decided to have a dicky fit and completely wiped itself; I have about 50% of my music backed up on an external hard drive but not all of it and some of it I don't own any more (I always buy music CDs but generally sell them again when I've ripped them to my laptop to get some cash back). I know that largely this was my mistake but I now have an iPod I can't update because the second I plug it into my computer the memory will be wiped and I'll lose some great songs that I really like listening to. It's bad enough that I don't have the music on my computer any more! I was considering getting an iPhone when my blackberry contract runs out but I don't think I want to anymore.

The retail price of an iPod classic is about £150 - £210 depending on the size you want, and whether or not it's brand new, has engraving etc. Every Apple product comes with headphones that will break in about two weeks and a little manual on how to use it. To me this is massively expensive and it's just a cash in on what's popular when there are lots of cheaper, easier to use and more accessible MP3 players out there that aren't related to Apple.

Next time I buy an MP3 player, it'll be one that can be updated without reformatting or wiping the previous data - you can get players that you simply drag and drop files into without having to remove the previous files, like a big memory stick. And they're a damn sight cheaper too!