iPod classic bumped to 160GB, price stays the same at $249
By Paul Miller 
posted September 9th 2009 12:48PM
posted September 9th 2009 12:48PM
posted September 9th 2009 12:48PM
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Didn't Apple make these *smaller* at 120GB because they were the 'sweet spot' and that 'customers didn't want the larger sizes'?
Backtracking and pretending the 40GB 'increase' is revolutionary... typical Apple.
Typical apple hater! Where and when did they claim it was revolutionary?
Oh, they didn't which makes your comment pointless.
@carson
The point here is that Apple backpedaled and, while they didn't use the term "revolutionary", I'm sure their presentation made it seem like this was some sort of long-awaited improvement.
Yes, the 160 GB is a lot more than 120 GB, but the event seemed to completely ignore the fact that not two years ago the Classics used to have 160 GB capacities.
I think the old 160 GB was thicker since it required a 2-platter hard drive. The new one is probably a single platter, and the "sweet spot" for portable drives (that's the size of the drive on most Netbooks these days too).
major redesign fail. why put all of improvements into the nano and leave the classic out in the cold?
It's called the classic for a reason.
its because the nano is usually the iPod that people buy.
remember when iPods were 500 bucks and they were luxury items? now everyone has one. when iPods were more expensive it was prudent to put the most features in their signature line.
then the mini came out and all the moms who couldn't afford to buy their kid an ipod suddenly could. and then the nano came and it was game over man. apple makes a profit off every iPod sold, but they a practically STEALING money from people on the nanos. it's sad when it isn't even worth the research and development for the classic because apple sees no real benefit to keeping it around except for the fact that the people would truly be in an uproar if it was gone.
say what you will, but hard disk based mp3 players still cost more to produce than flash ones even with cameras. apple won't make as much money and will have to take that much more time paying off the R&D if they actually change the classic. switching drives probably wasn't to give more features, but rather it was a much more cheaper drive than the current 120gb drives they were getting.
don't get it twisted, apple doesn't care about you. they care about money. just like car manufacturers they make the flashy expensive model once. and then forget about it for 5/6 years, while honda and toyota continually reinvent the midsize sedan market year after year. the large cars don't make as much money as the smaller or cheaper ones. same principle with apple. i have an iPhone which I love, and I got one of those nanos from key bank, but i don't for a second think that apple actually cares, they just want to move more product.
sorry if it was too long, but there's the answer to your question...
have they announced release dates for any of the new ipods?
Yes, I believe everything said "today"
Well then I'm returning my 120gb Classic that I bought 29 days ago. Talk about luck.
There's a 240gb version of the drive apple puts in the classic. Actually, since they have a 160gb single platter apparently there's probably a 320gb drive. Put it in an ipod classic (or zune) =instabuy for me.
that would be baaaaaaallin
I agree, major redesign fail. I don't quite understand why the ipod classic hasn't received a decent facelift or upgrade. The UI is the same, the screen is still the same small screen from the ipod video, still has a massive wheel, and no significant memory increase. I would have considered a 250gb or even the slimmer 160gb if the ipod got a design overhaul. I'll stick with my old 160gb classic thanks.
Very disappointed with this "refresh".
I would have liked just a price drop a lot more than adding more gbs. I wont ever have 160 gbs of music, so I wont even consider this.
So the US price for the Classic has stayed the same (USD 249), yet the UK price has actually INCREASED from GBP 175 to GBP 189! It was already more expensive in the UK anyway!
Pretty outrageous from Apple, and yet again the UK consumer is getting a raw deal... Good thing I'm in the US on business and can pop into the Apple Store to save myself about GBP 30/USD 50.
Yep. Phil Schiller actually lied during the event. Same price my foot! Why does the UK have to subsidise US consumers?
I am just plain glad that they brought the 160gb back. To me it seems that it is a revised version. 160gb is the perfect size for me. Once I get this I will be then setting my sights on getting the iPod Touch 64GB.
While there are not many people out there who fully utilize 160GB, probably less than a fraction of a percent, but those who do are the hard core users, and generally amongst the most passionate music fans. Apple knows this, and thus does not make it. Their average user has a couple hundred MP3s, while they consider their power to have anywhere from 5-10K, which most their devices cover sufficiently.
160GB is not hard to fill. That is less than 30K higher quality MP3s, and far less in terms of FLAC. That is before using it for video, storage etc. There are many people that fall into this category. Having to make playlists to determine what music one brings with them is a pain. One never knows what song that may want to hear at any given moment. The average user might not understand this, but having your entire music collection at your fingerips is a large part of the appeal of a high capacity device.
I have the Touch and iPhone, both are great, but I would never use either for primary music device as each, even in their largest capacity, are extremely limited. No one expects a cheap 250GB flash drive for these, so we accept the fact that we are stuck with the classic for the time being. The re-release of the 160GB is dissappointing to many of us for this reason.
My year and a half old 160 GB is filled with only about 40 GB of music. I found that the screen, while smaller than 99% of PMPs, is adequate for watching TV shows, movies and music videos on the go- especially on international flights- where the iphone/touch would die after 5 hours of video (the classic 160GB lasts well over 10 hrs w/ video).
I'm not that hardcore of a music nut, but I still find the usefulness in having some extra space.
My 160 has been 95%+ full from day one. Had they brought out a bigger Classic, even if it was exactly the same but just with a bigger drive, I would have bought it immediately, whatever the price. Rereleasing the player they discontinued based on the thought that "nobody needs that much stuff" almost makes me angry, it's like a slap in the face. We got abandoned for being power users, and now they bring out the same product at the same price 2 years later, and calling it progress.
First company to bring out a 240GB+ PMP gets my money, no questions asked.
40,000 songs in your pocket. $40,000 dollars in theirs.
Not if you know how to use bittorrent...
Putting aside issues about piracy and BitTorrent, I've never bought a song from iTunes. Much of my music comes from CDs, and I listen to a fair amount of freely available music. And lots of music simply cannot be found on iTunes, like foreign music (the "World" genre just doesn't cut it) and music from video games.
Lame, no new Classic hardware. And I was holding out all this time with my 2007 80GB Classic...
foolish fools... still no good options as my prev-gen 160gb classic has only 5 gb left. NOT looking forward to manual playlisting, makes life absolutely suck when you got 22000+ tracks. plus it's slow as shit, takes 10 seconds to enter a music sub menu. who the hell wants to have under 256 kbps mp3s these days anyways? files are getting bigger, and there are people who have big libraries, and these are also the type of people who actually care about sound quality. Hope a 240 gb version comes out soon.
I completely understand what you're saying, but let's face it:
The average consumer probably can't distinguish between 128 and 192kbps, let alone anything higher than that. The concept of lossless music hasn't hit them yet, and compounding that with the number of songs you have, it just seems absurd to the general public why 160 GB isn't enough for you.
I hate that Apple (and other music player manufacturers, for that matter) penalize power users for making the most of their products. I honestly doubt we'll see a higher capacity player from any company for a good long while.
what gen was the las 160gb and what gen is this one ?
and is there any difference ?
Well, this is pathetic.
No FM radio, no new software, no model redesign, no major storage increase, no improved specifications whatsoever.
In fact, the only major difference between this and my 80 GB 5G Video (the last plastic one) is the metal faceplate and extra storage. Hell, even the software is barely any different except for coverflow (slow) and genius (useless).
I think I'll stick with my 5G until the new HDD Zune model is announced
3 hundred billion songs in your asshole.
I am one of the few iPod Video users still holding out for a cool refresh of the Classic. I have swapped out the battery in mine twice and use it at least 12 hours a day. I like the form factor of the classic and think it's a great iPod but not enough for me to get rid of mine since it still works great.
Ummm yeah... My congratulations to Apple for making everyone swoon over their announcement of a new, greater capacity 160GB iPod Classic. I have had one for over a year. What a scam.
How come Apple can not (or will not) make a Ipod Touch with a hard drive? Why is everyone HAVE to make a lower capacity storage player but have it cost more than a hard drive one? If the Touch had at least 160gigs like the "new" Classic does, I would buy one as soon as I could. and I am not a Apple buyer.
I would rather have more storage than the ability to play cheap costing games, etc. I just want a music player that allows me to hold more music, etc than having to decide what I want on it. when I want it.
I wish apple would put all the new stuff that is in the nan 5th gen into the ipod classic but make them better, i just don't like the nano
i want to get 1 becuse i have over 120gb of music and i still have an old 60gb ipod video haha i love ipod classic because what i want in an ipod is just music and video THATS IT i dont really care about cheap games and apps i have a psp to play games on and all i want is something to play my music apple has lost track of what the ipod really meant it was a simple music player now its just a device you can play games and write text messages on.