That would explain the constant pausing while info from the hard drive is downloaded

Well, I've had a hard drive-based Creative for 3 years and a 120 gb Zune for the past 6 months and they NEVER paused in the middle of a song.

On this iPod, the game is constantly pausing, waiting for information from the hard drive

This worked for less then 3 months and then the hard drive gave out

The only problem is that I am filling up my hard drive with too many songs and videos to put onto it!

Which means the only restrictions I have on the size and quantity of stuff I shove into my "pocket jukebox" is the willingness to install a one terrabyte hard drive into my iMac to accomodate all my movies!

They say all hard drive-based MP3 players do it.

All my previous ipods have been "get up and go", but this one I constantly have to stop and make sure the hard drive's stopped spinning, the music is definitely off, etc.

It's still got the other regular features; album track lyrics (new, nicer text font, and it also shows the album art), can play video and games, store photos, contacts, calendar, notes, stopwatch, and screen lock (which allows you to lock the screen with a password), and it can be used as an external hard drive

When the hard drive failed last week, I assumed it was covered by Apple's one-year warranty - only to find that it had been registered in April 2008, and Apple would not replace it

The Zen started having cross-talk on all the tracks really bad, so I knew the hard drive was on the way out

whatever, cannot function as a hard drive.

When we got it we had to download the music twice because the hard drive was

Well, I've had a hard drive-based Creative for 3 years and a 120 gb Zune for the past 6 months and they NEVER paused in the middle of a song.

In this industry, there is NO reason why a 256k or hybrid or some other system should fit in this case - there are 256k flash drives available for goodness sake.

This combined with the quick eating of the battery due to the spinning hard drive and the classic will not be traveling on any of my road trips

However, the ipod's laggy menus, spinning hard drive that eats up battery juice at a moment's notice, the fact that the cover flow is annoyingly moody all contribute to a not so good device.

Then after a while your Itunes is getting pretty fat and you are stressing over hard drive

.One additional note, if you've enjoyed the ability to fix minor things with your Ipod, like battery replacement or hard drive replacement, those days are also gone.

I could never dream back then as I ruined so many cassette tapes packing them around that there would be the day