I has been two weeks since I got my hands on a 160GB iPod Classic with the intention of replacing my 60GB iPod Photo so that I can carry more music with me, and maybe an occassional video or photo collection.

As reported on my last two review "journals" on the iPod Classic, there are some things about the iPod Classic that are good and some that seem like a step backwards. This journal entry focuses on a significant user experience issue with the iPod Classic and iTunes: music management and sync-ing between iTunes and the iPod Classic is painfully slow.

Each time I add a new song or podcast track to the iPod Classic using iTunes, iTunes will hang for about 10-15 seconds while using 100% of the cycles on one of the two cores on either my laptop or my desktop (both have Core 2 Duo processors running Windows XP SP2). During that time, the status message on the iPod Classic goes between "Connected" and sync-ing. I have tried connecting the iPod Classic to various USB ports and tried three different Apple USB sync cables, each came with the three iPods in the household.

If I drag over several tracks, the hang does not occur until near the end of the bulk transfer. As you can guess, this has made loading up my iPod Classic an adventure of playing with my patience and cursing out loud. The problem does not occur with neither my iPod Photo or an iPod Nano. Both iTunes and the iPod Classic are running the latest software.

After sifting through the Apple Support Discussion forums, it looks like I am not the only one with this problem.

In combination of the painful transfer hangs, the somewhat sluggish user interface of the iPod Classic and the problem of radio station presets when using the Radio Remote, my experience with the iPod Classic has not left me with a good taste in my mouth.

Apple really needs to resolve the user interface performance issues and the iTunes transfer/sync issues that are plaguing the iPod Classic.