[ghaddaffisghost]

Right now, i have an ipod nano 3rd gen which i like, but the battery life has gotten really short, and i dont have enough space for all my music on it. I like the higher capacity, better sound quality, and looks of the classic, but the nano is smaller, and has a solid drive that's apparently more reliable than the hard drive of the classic. I will mostly carry it with me in my pocket, and use grado sr60i's without an amp (i had some problems with my current nano not being able to drive some bass.) im just wondering what i should get. also, im sorry if some of my terminology is bad, im new to this site. Thanks!

 

[Exediron]

I'd definitely go for the classic. The newest Nanos are so small they're all-but unusable, and with the higher capacity of the classic you can hold more uncompressed music; I'd have trouble fitting a good chunk of my albums on a Nano without using compression. And compression is the antichrist

 
As for reliability, my classic is 4 years old (160 GB) and has never had any issues whatsoever. However, my mother's classic - which is a year older, 80 GB - did have a lockup once and needed to have the battery run completely down to restore it. You won't have to worry about wake-up time with a SSD, but I don't think with an iPod that's really much of an issue.

 

[flatmap]

I use my classic often, and it is great to have so much storage.  However, for the touch models (which run IOS) you can buy nice EQ apps -- and that may be another consideration.

 

[jay-w]

I sold my Classic 5th gen to a mate a few years ago so I could get an iPod Touch. Now I wish I hadn't. It had much better sound quality than the Touch and my iPhone. When I go travelling in a few months I'll definitely buy another one.

 

[Achmedisdead]

There is no such thing as a Classic 5th gen.
The 5th gen/ 5.5 gen hard drive iPod is called the iPod Video. It was not until the 6th gen that they called it a "Classic", and it has a different sound from the Video due to a different DAC chip. Some like the 5th gen's sound better, some like the 6th/7th gen sound better.