Nope, other than not working without gloves and being tough to operate in your pocket (especially with no hardware volume control), it's fully functional. Hack it and it becomes even more awesome with 3rd-party software.
However, it might be worth looking at a Nano if you want to save the money. Yeah, it doesn't have all the cool trinkets of the Touch, but it's basically the Classic in a smaller form factor with less space (which you said you don't care about anyway).
If the smaller storage space and higher pricetag are no issue then go with the touch. Until it can hold 40-60GB I won't be getting one. My old iPod photo 60gb is refusing to die anyway.
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
This is what I was going to say. I like to walk with my mp3 player, so I definitely like the simplest, most intuitive controls possible. You might as well get an iPhone for all that trouble; at least then, you have all those additional features to make up for the less-than-satisfactory controls.
Provided I were wealthy enough to buy one without breaking a sweat (and if I couldn't find better alternative players which certainly isn't the case now) I would buy a Classic.
I'd go with the touch. I got one on Monday for work and proceeded to hack into it and add extra apps. It's more like a broken computer that happens to play music than an mp3 player that happens to be able to browse the web.
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
They have headphone attachments that give you a remote to do this for you, you know.
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
They have headphone attachments that give you a remote to do this for you, you know.
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
They have headphone attachments that give you a remote to do this for you, you know.
ya, for an extra $50.
You should be able to do that out of the box.
I don't think they cost that much. Sony gives them away with headphones, even.
Not a big problem, but if you happen to be running 64bit windows, you're shit out of luck with the touch, and possible even the new Classics. I know for a fact the Touch doesn't work with my 64bit Vista.
On the point however, I love my Touch to pieces if for the wifi browser alone. I don't like the 16gb's (which is really like 14gbs) since I have a ton of music, but I think the bonus of all the other great stuff make up for the fact of me having to micromanage my music on it from time to time.
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
It's weird because the iPhone has the volume buttons. And it also has a speaker (obviously for the phone part) that can play music through it, but everyone in awhile, it's actually useful for when you're bored on a project with some friends or something and you can throw down some beats whenever. (Although one time, for some inexplicable reason, it started to play music through the speakers during class even though it was on silent mode.)
EDIT: Also, if the touch is anything like my iPhone, battery time on playing video is pretty awful. Something like 4-5 hours. (Although technically all iPods are rated for 5 hours. It just doesn't seem that long.)
the lack of a hardware volume control is a dealbreaker for me, and the main reason I bought a Classic instead of a touch. not being able to do something as simple as pause the sonc or adjust volume without taking it out of my pocket, focusing on it, and pressing a non-tactile button is pretty stupid in an mp3 player.
I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
It's weird because the iPhone has the volume buttons. And it also has a speaker (obviously for the phone part) that can play music through it, but everyone in awhile, it's actually useful for when you're bored on a project with some friends or something and you can throw down some beats whenever. (Although one time, for some inexplicable reason, it started to play music through the speakers during class even though it was on silent mode.)
EDIT: Also, if the touch is anything like my iPhone, battery time on playing video is pretty awful. Something like 4-5 hours. (Although technically all iPods are rated for 5 hours. It just doesn't seem that long.)
Apple needed to make the iPhone look much better than the Touch basically. Hence why loads of software onboard is crippled as well.
Makes sense really, considering in the UK at least you can get a vastly better mobile on contract for free, and then just pick up an iPod Touch for all the other music and touch screen stuff. Touch would cannibalize iPhone sales otherwise.
I want an iPhone! But only in the same way I want a nice shiny Porsche and a huge Bravia tv (it's never going to happen).
If space is not an issue the Touch is a pretty good iPod. I make a bunch of tailored playlists and a few smart playlists for my iPhone. I have ~40GB of music and untold GB of video so it won't even come close to fitting on my 8GB of iPhone. My playlists group albums together in the collection I would normally listen to them in. For instance my Daft Punk is grouped with my Future Sound of London, Fatboy Slim, and LCD Soundsystem. I load and unload my playlists depending on the mood I'm in or where I'm going. I don't really need to carry everything with me, at any given time I'm only listening to a handful of records. I use my smart playlists to load up a bunch of tracks I either listen to often or haven't listened to in a long time. Using this scheme I find 8GB is plenty of space for the music I want to carry with me and some TV shows episodes. I can't really stand to watch video on a handheld device for more than about 30min so I don't bother with movies which saves a bit of space.
Bonus Tip: If you're going to back up DVDs you own onto your iPod don't bother will full VGA/SD copies. I encode shows at ~768kbps, 640kbps for video at 480x360 and 128kbps for stereo audio. You can probably venture a little lower (512kbs for video and down to 96kbps for audio) for most TV shows unless they have a lot of high action sequences. At 768kbps that is about 126MB for an episode of a TV show, about half of the storage needed for the VGA 1500kbps shows from iTunes. I encode stuff to watch on my TV/computer at full resolution and a second copy at lower resolution for my iPod (now iPhone).
Nope, other than not working without gloves and being tough to operate in your pocket (especially with no hardware volume control), it's fully functional. Hack it and it becomes even more awesome with 3rd-party software.
However, it might be worth looking at a Nano if you want to save the money. Yeah, it doesn't have all the cool trinkets of the Touch, but it's basically the Classic in a smaller form factor with less space (which you said you don't care about anyway).
There are no hardware volume buttons on the Touch?
Now that I have one though I don't want to jailbreak it because my girlfriend had it engraved... Now I want to buy another one to hack the crap out of.
Also this post was typed as fast as I could so I'm pretty impressed with the keyboard.
Now that I have one though I don't want to jailbreak it because my girlfriend had it engraved... Now I want to buy another one to hack the crap out of.
Also this post was typed as fast as I could so I'm pretty impressed with the keyboard.
And thankfully, you're typing it horizontally, as opposed to the goddamn vertical email textbox.
Now that I have one though I don't want to jailbreak it because my girlfriend had it engraved... Now I want to buy another one to hack the crap out of.
Also this post was typed as fast as I could so I'm pretty impressed with the keyboard.
And thankfully, you're typing it horizontally, as opposed to the goddamn vertical email textbox.
Actually, the first line of that was typed horizontally, and I switched to vertical from then on to try it out. I was pretty impressed.
Of course it kept trying to replace my username with "Roman" but I suppose it'll learn after a while.
I guess I should mention this thread's been rendered moot since my wife bought me an ipod touch which is sitting under the tree right now ARGH THE PAIN
but yeah good to know it seems exactly right for what I intend to use it for
I've planned to use my Touch mostly for video and web browsing, but I put some music on it just to see how it works out as a music player.
Web browsing: awesome. I've grown so used to the touch interface that last night I tried to zoom out on a page on my Powerbook by pinching my fingers together, and I was confused for a moment when it didn't work. Woops.
Video: pretty awesome. I've encoded two movies with a lot of dark, high action scenes (Transformers and Batman Begins) and so far, it holds up pretty well. Blacks tend to overwhelm a lot of darker details, but that's to be expected since the contrast ratio on the screen isn't very high. However, for me it's not a deal breaker and I can definitely imagine sitting back and watching a two hour movie on a flight or something like that (using the included stand, which I love).
Music: this is actually the one place where I'm kinda disappointed. Despite the screen being larger and displaying really beautiful album art, it actually manages to give you less information about what you're listening to than other iPods. Namely, on a regular iPod there's a bar that tells you how far through the song you are, and if you click the center button and then spin your finger around the wheel, you can scrub through the song. This makes navigating really long songs a breeze... but there's no such function on the Touch. You can only hold the fast forward and rewind button to skip parts of songs. Kinda annoying, but I guess I can deal.
My biggest gripe comes with the Cover Flow mode. While pretty, it's not functional at all. Unless I'm missing something obvious (which very well may be the case) there's no volume control in Cover Flow mode, just a play/pause button. At work I like to leave the Touch in its stand, which keeps it in Cover Flow mode, but to change the volume, I have to either double tap the menu button to bring up a slider or pick up the Touch and turn it so it goes into vertical mode. Again, not such a deal breaker for me since I'm not going to listen to that much music on it, but for someone who will, I expect this will be really annoying.
Overall though, I'm pretty in love. The form factor is amazing and I love everything except the music playing. The biggest problem is that since my girlfriend got this one engraved, I don't want to jailbreak it for fear of something going wrong... so now I want to buy another one to hack and install all sorts of cool stuff on. I guess I can wait until February, though.
Music: this is actually the one place where I'm kinda disappointed. Despite the screen being larger and displaying really beautiful album art, it actually manages to give you less information about what you're listening to than other iPods. Namely, on a regular iPod there's a bar that tells you how far through the song you are, and if you click the center button and then spin your finger around the wheel, you can scrub through the song. This makes navigating really long songs a breeze... but there's no such function on the Touch. You can only hold the fast forward and rewind button to skip parts of songs. Kinda annoying, but I guess I can deal.
Really? I could swear that I heard(may have been for the iPhone) that you can touch and drag the position in the song forward or backward. I specifically remember this because the review said that with the touch interface, it can be hard to stop exactly where you want.
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The biggest advantage of the Touch is the non-disc storage.
Classic iPod's had problems with their storage discs wearing out over time.
A Touch should last you much longer at the expense of storage capacity.
a good point, but not a deal-breaker.
all signs point to the touch being a decent investment
I was worried there was some glaring lack of functionality I was overlooking with it
However, it might be worth looking at a Nano if you want to save the money. Yeah, it doesn't have all the cool trinkets of the Touch, but it's basically the Classic in a smaller form factor with less space (which you said you don't care about anyway).
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I don't hate touchscreens, I have the HTC Touch as my cell phone, but fuck, even the touch has hardware volume controls.
This is what I was going to say. I like to walk with my mp3 player, so I definitely like the simplest, most intuitive controls possible. You might as well get an iPhone for all that trouble; at least then, you have all those additional features to make up for the less-than-satisfactory controls.
Provided I were wealthy enough to buy one without breaking a sweat (and if I couldn't find better alternative players which certainly isn't the case now) I would buy a Classic.
Seriously, this thing is awesome.
You'll just spend long car journeys being annoyed you don't have that song you want...
They have headphone attachments that give you a remote to do this for you, you know.
ya, for an extra $50.
You should be able to do that out of the box.
I don't think they cost that much. Sony gives them away with headphones, even.
Yes, it does AM/FM, but it's the only inline remote apple sells. And look, $50
On the point however, I love my Touch to pieces if for the wifi browser alone. I don't like the 16gb's (which is really like 14gbs) since I have a ton of music, but I think the bonus of all the other great stuff make up for the fact of me having to micromanage my music on it from time to time.
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It's weird because the iPhone has the volume buttons. And it also has a speaker (obviously for the phone part) that can play music through it, but everyone in awhile, it's actually useful for when you're bored on a project with some friends or something and you can throw down some beats whenever. (Although one time, for some inexplicable reason, it started to play music through the speakers during class even though it was on silent mode.)
EDIT: Also, if the touch is anything like my iPhone, battery time on playing video is pretty awful. Something like 4-5 hours. (Although technically all iPods are rated for 5 hours. It just doesn't seem that long.)
Apple needed to make the iPhone look much better than the Touch basically. Hence why loads of software onboard is crippled as well.
Makes sense really, considering in the UK at least you can get a vastly better mobile on contract for free, and then just pick up an iPod Touch for all the other music and touch screen stuff. Touch would cannibalize iPhone sales otherwise.
I want an iPhone! But only in the same way I want a nice shiny Porsche and a huge Bravia tv (it's never going to happen).
stole mine!
(it's Harmonix's "iPod Hero")
Bonus Tip: If you're going to back up DVDs you own onto your iPod don't bother will full VGA/SD copies. I encode shows at ~768kbps, 640kbps for video at 480x360 and 128kbps for stereo audio. You can probably venture a little lower (512kbs for video and down to 96kbps for audio) for most TV shows unless they have a lot of high action sequences. At 768kbps that is about 126MB for an episode of a TV show, about half of the storage needed for the VGA 1500kbps shows from iTunes. I encode stuff to watch on my TV/computer at full resolution and a second copy at lower resolution for my iPod (now iPhone).
Pretty much.
Though I believe Nero Recode does a capable job as well.
But costs money.
There are no hardware volume buttons on the Touch?
Janky.
Now that I have one though I don't want to jailbreak it because my girlfriend had it engraved... Now I want to buy another one to hack the crap out of.
Also this post was typed as fast as I could so I'm pretty impressed with the keyboard.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
And thankfully, you're typing it horizontally, as opposed to the goddamn vertical email textbox.
Actually, the first line of that was typed horizontally, and I switched to vertical from then on to try it out. I was pretty impressed.
Of course it kept trying to replace my username with "Roman" but I suppose it'll learn after a while.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
but yeah good to know it seems exactly right for what I intend to use it for
I've planned to use my Touch mostly for video and web browsing, but I put some music on it just to see how it works out as a music player.
Web browsing: awesome. I've grown so used to the touch interface that last night I tried to zoom out on a page on my Powerbook by pinching my fingers together, and I was confused for a moment when it didn't work. Woops.
Video: pretty awesome. I've encoded two movies with a lot of dark, high action scenes (Transformers and Batman Begins) and so far, it holds up pretty well. Blacks tend to overwhelm a lot of darker details, but that's to be expected since the contrast ratio on the screen isn't very high. However, for me it's not a deal breaker and I can definitely imagine sitting back and watching a two hour movie on a flight or something like that (using the included stand, which I love).
Music: this is actually the one place where I'm kinda disappointed. Despite the screen being larger and displaying really beautiful album art, it actually manages to give you less information about what you're listening to than other iPods. Namely, on a regular iPod there's a bar that tells you how far through the song you are, and if you click the center button and then spin your finger around the wheel, you can scrub through the song. This makes navigating really long songs a breeze... but there's no such function on the Touch. You can only hold the fast forward and rewind button to skip parts of songs. Kinda annoying, but I guess I can deal.
My biggest gripe comes with the Cover Flow mode. While pretty, it's not functional at all. Unless I'm missing something obvious (which very well may be the case) there's no volume control in Cover Flow mode, just a play/pause button. At work I like to leave the Touch in its stand, which keeps it in Cover Flow mode, but to change the volume, I have to either double tap the menu button to bring up a slider or pick up the Touch and turn it so it goes into vertical mode. Again, not such a deal breaker for me since I'm not going to listen to that much music on it, but for someone who will, I expect this will be really annoying.
Overall though, I'm pretty in love. The form factor is amazing and I love everything except the music playing. The biggest problem is that since my girlfriend got this one engraved, I don't want to jailbreak it for fear of something going wrong... so now I want to buy another one to hack and install all sorts of cool stuff on.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Really? I could swear that I heard(may have been for the iPhone) that you can touch and drag the position in the song forward or backward. I specifically remember this because the review said that with the touch interface, it can be hard to stop exactly where you want.