Far more storage for cheaper price. I think that makes it a no brainer. Use the difference in money to buy more music. I have a 120 gig model which has over 20000 songs on it with 10 gig to spare. Plus the current models sound great in my opinion if you match them with a decent pair of headphones. I've a pair of Sennheisers CX200 which Amazon have for about 13 quid. Sound lovely.

from LA. European Ipods have noise restrictions and US don't. Will also be marginally cheaper. Bought last 2 classics in States.

is plugs on power sockets etc and also there can be problems with warranties not being being honoured in Europe etc for products bought in US.

I believe they're international. I asked in an Apple store whether I could buy a Macbook Air in the US and the warranty be honoured here - they said it would be.

The iPod Touch is excellent, but only worth it if you think you're likely to use the additional features - camera, apps, games and so on. If you're liable to just listen to music on it, I'd say go with the Classic. It's an excellent bit of kit, and has a high storage capacity into the bargain.

You probably will get a better deal in the States, but I'd do some research and have a look at the US prices on the Apple website. Apple are quite hot on consistent pricing - I doubt you'd see much if any variation between online and stores - but at least you'd be able to see how they compare to the UK prices in advance and make a more informed decision.

an iPad and a small iPod, the nano or even the shuffle. The iPod touch, IMHO, is a nice piece of kit but has rather been overtaken by the iPad and is now neither an iPhone nor an iPad but something of a redundant inbetweener.

you can't get 64GB micro-SD cards.

My dad was mulling over buying an mp3 player with around 8GB storage. I bought him a 8GB microSD card from eBay for a tenner and stuck it in his Nokia phone (which he wasn't aware could play music).

Here's another way of making the decision:
Q. Are you a busy person?

If the answer is Yes then get a classic - The reason? You can't get "Angry Birds" for the classic.

I've got the I touch, but in truth after the first few weeks I never used any of the apps. And 8GB sounds like a lot, but isn't really. -1200 songs. With phones, I don't want to do anything other than make calls and text, and that rarely, so I just buy those 5 quid PAYG jobbies from LG. I lose them about once a month anyway, so paying more would be a waste.

There's also the hip factor - Our Techie at work is now carrying around some sort of post-ipad tablet phone thats about the size of a paperback and does ipad plus phone and camera. But I'm starting to think that, frankly, sporting heavy tech is starting to look a bit wanky. An 160gb ipod classic shows yer a serious music dude and not a slavering consumer. So much.

When it comes to security, I understand that Waikiki Leaks.

I'll, um, get my, um, you know.
*fetches coat and leaves shame-faced*

I've got a 160GB classic but If I could fit all my songs on a Touch I'd have that in a flash (see what I did there?) They are so much more versatile and fun than a Classic.

... is $249 over here. At the current exchange rate that's £158. So you could save yourself £35.

Although you can find chain stores, like Target, selling Apple products as well as the Apple stores themselves, you won't find any deals. They all sell at full MSRP.

I bought my iMac at LHR and got a VATtastic discount and had it delivered to the house when I got back.

From an iPod point of view - get a touch. Classic is great but a touch is simply brilliant for the money. Email, ebooks, games, web browser and loads of other things you don't think you would use until you try them. And its great for watching iPlayer on.

the classic was going great guns and I thought I'd made a decision, but this late touch surge has put me back in a quandary!

Thanks for the advice though. Does seem there are some advantages to a US model of either in terms of the absence of the volume limiter.

Thought I should say that, thanks to the advice here, I ended up getting a classic. I figured all the Touch extras I would use (mostly email and GPS) will probably be on the next phone I get anyway. I toyed with getting it in UK duty free - which after considering US sales tax is about £5 cheaper than the buying in the states, but the lack of volume limiter on the US model convinced me to buy at a Apple Store in Honolulu. Once again thanks for the advice, from a happy customer.

... that US prices are shown without sales tax. Depending where you buy it you could pay anywhere up to about 10% in tax. Stop over in Oregon. There's no sales tax there.

about $5 sales tax