I've owned the iPod Classic 60GB for over 5 years. It began as a travelling companion for music and movies. I quickly realised how easy it was to watch films on any TV and it then became my home media player. The storage space is good at 60GB but you do need to convert videos which reduces their size. So it is feeling rather outdated now and I will be upgrading to a proper media player. I will still happily use the iPod when travelling. I'm hoping it will hook up to an iPad for the screen. After 5 years of almost daily use the battery is still pretty darn good. I can easily watch 4 hours of movies on my TV through it. I've dropped it countless times and it still works perfectly. That is a big plus and a sign that Apple really do make quality products. Music quality seems very good to me too.

The Apple iPod Video 60GB is good but love it. I would definately recommend one.

Quite disappointed was a Christmas present and it was £180 and I was really upset when it started freezing it wouldn't stop. Piece of rubbish!

The Apple iPod Video 30GB is my favourite gadget by far, have over 1000 songs and about 40 TV programmes and memory is only about half full. Internal battery is very quick to charge up keeps it for several hours use. Can connect to my hi-fi via a long headphone to phono lead available from Maplin for about a fiver - probably not ideal if you are really into top hi-fi sound but fantastic to have your entire album collection available as you chill on the sofa!! Would highly recommend.

A very nice gismo sound quality 2 dimensional.This is not a HIFI sound peace of kit I throw away the ear phones and replaced them with ultimate Ears ear buds(165),now the I pod is starting to sing.The music has no great emotion of coarse due to the price,listen to Szymanowski symphony No 3 track 6 on a reasonable priced HIFI around 15000 and there will be tears.Having said that i bought one so it cannot be all bad.

I like the Apple iPod Video 30GB's weight, it's not too heavy and it holds a lot of songs. It generally has a very good sound system.Overall,I love it.

I've had a 60GB iPod Video for over a year now. It is definitely worth the money and still the lead in the industry. It is easy to use and easy to understand. I find though that some games are hard to play and some audio books are hard to set up in system. It's also easy to scratch the glass face.

Generally satisfied except for bad point raised above.

After owning the iPod for just under a year, I have experienced it crashing, displaying the wrong artwork and the like. Mediocre battery life, under 'real' situation I could barely get 8 hours out of it. The design of the iPod is rather starting to look somewhat 'tacky' and outdated. The build quality too, is rather flimsy, especially the headphones, which the rubber around them has already started to come off. The sound leveller feature does not work either. I think Apple might be getting knocked off their crown very soon.

Change the iPod's headphones and everything is good.

If you're more in to aesthetics than sound quality this is the machine for you!

Slated by many, the iPod just remains the king of all MP3 players. It's design and sound quality really make me a happy chappy and once you get over the initial obsession of changing tracks and scrolling through your music list the battery life isn't all that bad. Videos kill your battery however! I can't imagine watching a full feature movie on an iPod anyway, but I seriously wonder whether the battery would last a full movie for a start!

Overall, the iPod Video is a great purchase. Like the slim design and the ease of use, the only drawback being it's not very hard wearing but hey, nothing is perfect!

I have saved up for this for about 4 months and boy, it was worth it! The battery isn't great and neither is the back, but apart from that, it is perfect. My dad was amazed when he saw all of the videos on it. Overall, this is the best purchase I have ever made!

Ok, the ten thousandth review for the iPod.

I caught the iPod bug way back and got myself an iPod mini, upgrading from that eventually to this, the iPod video 30GB in white. I unpack it and caress its smooth sexy body, plug it in to charge and get onto my computer eagerly updating to the latest version of iTunes so I can have my video's ready and waiting. It was superb, working all day, supplying me with music, movies and games without fail. It went well for about three months, working hard and showing no signs of stopping. And then it did. I plugged it into the charger one day and left it there to do its thing. I came back a few hours later and picked the iPod up. The metal backing to it was burning hot and I almost dropped it. I unplugged it and put it down instantly tending to my hand. I gave it time to cool down and then went and turned it on. It should have had long enough to charge fully but upon inspection it only had enough juice for about 3 mins of music. I charged it again and the same thing happened again. This time I gave it a day between charges and the next time I plugged it in something else happened; as the power points connected the screen lit up and displayed an unusual logo. A cartoon type iPod with a bandage and crutch with text underneath claiming that the iPod was faulty and to contact apple. Unfortunately this really was the end for my iPod but after contacting apple they managed to swap it for a new one and all is well. Well, anyway, that's my story, now for the review:

The data transfer is unbelievably fast, and menu searching is without fault. The iPod Video really is a perfect MP3 player with the exception of two things, one, the battery (but if you get a recent one that doesn't seem to be a problem), and two, the screen. Even if always kept in the included leather slip case the screen tends to get covered in small, light scratches pretty quickly. I strongly recommend if you are getting one to also get a case with a screen protector. It is worth it.

All in all it is worth the money and does the job in an enjoyable and satisfactory way. Highly recommended.

I bought the 30G Video iPod last August to take with me to France on a family holiday. And I can honestly say this is the best purchase I have made in a long time.

I had owned a first generation iPod Shuffle prior to owning this Video iPod, so I was used to the iTunes software that came with it, and getting used to the 'click wheel' to operate the iPod was really easy. Just 'spin' it left or right to choose the item you want. It's that simple.

Loading the iPod with the tunes was also fairly straight forward. I had all my CD's on my hard-drive before I bought this unit, so the boring part of uploading was done (do you know how long it take to upload 800 cd's???) so all I had to do was register the new iPod (automatically done online) and then tell it to download the songs. As there was quite a few songs (800 albums worth, funnily enough...) this also took some time. But just start it going, and then leave it for a few hours.

Putting new tracks onto the iPod is also child's play. Just download them to your hard-drive, and when the iPod is connected it will automatically find them and upload them. Marvelous.

And the new version of the operating system for iTunes automatically finds the album art online, so you can show off the album cover when playing the songs from it. If you so desire.

All aspects of this MP3 player are customisable. You can choose to manually update songs from iTunes, you can choose to show album art on the screen. You can choose to use the hard-drive as a portable storage system for pictures, videos, software, in fact anything you can put on your computer can be stored on the Video iPod. Even certain games and your contacts from Outlook!

Charging the Video iPod is also a doodle. Just plug the supplied cable into a spare USB socket on your computer and the other end into the iPod. The charging will start automatically (as long as the drivers have been loaded onto the computer).

If you want to delete EVERYTHING on your iPod (not recommended unless you are REALLY SURE) just click the button on iTunes when the iPod is connected. There is the secondary 'are you sure' button to stop accidental deletion, but it's good to know that the option is there.

If your iPod freezes up on you (mine did once and it took me forever to work out how to unfreeze it) just push the menu button and the centre button and it is good as new. The whole O/S is so easy to use. Microsoft should take a page out of Apple's book and make Windows more like this!

On a personal note, my Video iPod has been dropped, kicked and generally abused (mainly when at the gym...) and even been through a full cycle in the washing machine, and it still works.

Now, I would not recommend these actions at all or for any delicate piece of equipment such as an MP3 player, but bloody hell, it still works! And with no visible problems!

All listed above, the good points are VERY good, the machine is very easy to use, very sleek, and very reliable (especially in my case...). And the bad points are difficult to locate! As I have only two things to moan about, I think that means this is a great machine. And a case/cover would remove the first 'bad' point in one foul swoop!

I can understand why this is the UK's best selling style MP3 player.

So all in all, yes this is a great MP3 player, but keep it clear of washing machines. Just in case...

DESIGN: The 5th gen. Video ipod is a stunner. It is even slimmer and lighter than its predecessors while its hard drive is an expansive 80GB. It comes in cool 'retro' white or sexy black. It has to be said that looks-wise it beats all opposition hands down. The ergonomics and design of the player are very good, with the touch-sensitive thumb-wheel contributing to quick and easy navigation by the user. The battery life of the player is not very good. A full charge will probably last the average user around 10-12 hours. That is not terrible in itself, as most people don't mind re-charging their player every couple of days.

SOUND: The sound is good and if you want to get the best out of it you had better invest in a better pair of headphones than the ones supplied by apple. The ipod recognises MP3 and AAC music files.

FEATURES: The features of the new ipod are decent, but compared to other players, they are a bit sparce. There is no radio and no recorder. However,there is now a useful search function which allowes you to look for songs or artists using 'boolean' logic (by using a text search string). You can create play lists on-the-fly and there are a few other gimmicky features like games and a calendar. The player comes with the classic ipod earphones, a USB2 cable, a manual and pretty much nothing else. Inittialy, the only way to charge the player is by connecting it to your computer with the USB2 cable. You could invest in a docking station which acts as a charger as well, but you would have to buy that seperately.

VIDEO: The video resolution is good and the screen is crisp and bright, reaching resulotions of up to 640x480, providing the viewer with intense colours and fluid animation with no pixellation. Unfortunatelly, you are only allowed to import movies via the iTunes website. In truth, there are ways to import your own movies using 3rd party software, however they are not officially supported by Apple.

CONCLUSION: The new Video ipod is a beautiful, well designed video/mp3 player. It will cost you some money, and its battery life is not the best, however if you want a solid, good looking and easy to use portable video/music player, you can't go wrong with the new ipod.

My rating: 85%