5 best iPod classic alternatives

What to buy now Apple’s killed its standalone MP3 player

The iPod died without ceremony or commemoration in September, and quietly slipped off the shelves in October. But the 13-year-old Classic, which launched Apple’s iPod line, was mourned by many music fans. It offered far bigger storage (a blessing for people still unconvinced by Apple’s move to the cloud), an unending battery life (perfect for travelling, in an age of phones that die in hours) and was seemingly unbreakable.

If you’re desperate for an iPod Classic, you can head to Amazon or eBay where they’re commanding big premiums second hand. But if you’d rather avoid the scrum for the iPod Classic, here’s our pick of the best alternatives.

iPod Touch 64GB: £225, amazon

When the iPod Classic died, the 64GB iPod Touch became Apple’s biggest devoted music player. (The iPhone 6 with 128GB has the biggest hard drive of Apple’s mobile devices — rumours of an iPod touch with the same size hard drive haven’t come to much.) The biggest iPod Touch £249 — more expensive than the iPod Classic for a smaller size. But if you’re hooked into the Apple ecosystem, and want a device that can store music locally without buying a phone, this is the best solution left.

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Sony A Series Walkman: £169, John Lewis

The iPod supposedly killed the Walkman — but actually looks set to outlive it. The Walkmans use a memory card — it comes with 16GB but can be boosted to 128GB relatively cheaply. It also supports hi-res audio, which Sony reckons is even better than CDs. Sony also sells a video version — a little like the iPod touch — and smaller models. They’re all robustly built, with the kind of industrial and durable feel that made the iPod Classic stick around for so long.

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Fiio X5: £260, amazon

The Fiio is perhaps the closest thing left to the original iPod — in its scroll wheel, brushed metal and slick look. It takes memory cards, rather than having a built-in hard drive, but they can be expanded up to 129GB. The company makes its MP3 players in a range of sizes and prices — down to the recently announced, brushed-aluminium X1, which is £89.

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SanDisk Sansa Clip+: £30, amazon

Much cheaper than any of Apple’s iPods, this only has 8GB of storage — but by adding extra memory sticks you can take that up massively. If you’re unsure whether you want a dedicated MP3 player, or aren’t going to be using it all that often, this has lots of the advantages of the old iPod Classic at a fraction of the cost.

Buy now

PonoPlayer: $399, amazon

The Pono, Neil Young’s high-resolution portable digital music player, was announced to much excitement earlier this year. It isn’t actually released yet (an update on when it will be is likely to come at CES 2015, in January), it’s awkwardly-shaped and only plays music bought from the Pono store. But that music is, according to those who have used it, high-quality and lush — if you’re an audiophile and the appeal of the size of the iPod Classic was that you could fit big files on there, this could be worth waiting for.

Buy now (only ships from US and Canada)

Verdict:

If you want to stay in the Apple system — if all your music is in iTunes, for instance — Apple has left little option but to use the iPod Touch. But if you want something more like the iPod Classic’s quality, the Fiio has the storage space, build and looks to fill the hole that Apple’s little MP3 player left.

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