Well, I ran out of capacity on the 40GB machine some time ago, and hunted for a replacement. After a long time hesitating, I decided to jump in the Apple pool and an iPod Classic 160GB came my way for Christmas.

Am I enjoying it? Yes, I am. I still don’t have all of my CD collection on there yet – but it’s doing all the things I wanted.  A relatively new feature, Genius playlists, is particularly brilliant for mixing a playlist based on the track currently playing. It also has Genius Mixes which puts together streams of tracks based on a particular theme – which is determined by the content of the player.

I was a reluctant user of iTunes, but it works well even if it is a bit slow (probably because my laptop is ancient!) It handles podcasts beautifully. And the iPod’s handling of video is fantastic.

I was also really pleased to see that I can also record on the iPod. I bought a little plug in microphone on Amazon for just £4 and it opens up software which is already on the machine. I can record memos on the go and then listen to them back. I’ve also used this feature to record ambient sounds when out walking.

As I write this I am listening to a Podcast from WFMU called Downtown Soulville (obscure soul 45s). All in all I am impressed.