The peak of high technology

Author's Rating:

Pros: Amazing touch screen, super easy to use, beautiful design, small & lightweight

Cons: No bluetooth, funky Wi-Fi antenna

The Bottom Line: 
Fantastic high tech device, amazing design, good capacity, lots of features, and the software gets better and better!

Author's Review
I'm extremely happy with my 16GB iPod touch! I couldn't believe how thin it was! I figured it'd be roughly the same dimensions of the iPhone but this puppy is much thinner! I ordered directly from Apple.com and got free (and amazingly fast shipping). Shipped from China, through Alaska, the iPod was delivered to me in Arizona by FedEx in 2 days!

Apple has long be known for setting the standard for various areas of technology, and this iPod touch will be touch to beat. The aforementioned small size and thin design is just the beginning. The touch screen is amazing, the color and picture quality are great, and the audio quality is as good as any other iPod. I get great battery life out of the touch; with constant use the iPod gets about 18 hours of music playback (full screen brightness and frequent touch screen use), video is good for about 4-5 hours, and I know I can extend that if I let the touch automatically adjust the brightness and if I left the Wi-Fi off. During the day you can easily use the touch with the backlight turned way down and that would significantly increase battery life

The sound is great, the recently refreshed earbuds produce fantastic sound, and good bass for how tiny they are. The stereo sound is perfectly balanced, giving the impression of surround sound. The volume levels have a wide range, and can be turned up very, very high if needed, but I find keeping the volume around 50% is sufficient. A lot of people like to whine about Apple's earbuds, but I find them quite comfortable and their sound quality is very good. Any other pair of headphones in the world with the standard jack will work with the touch of course, so if you don't like 'em, but different ones. (Bose has excellent headphones, but they'll cost you).

The software onboard the iPod touch is exceptional. Far superior to any other personal media device out there! And it'll only get better with time thanks to Apple's software updates. The touch screen technology works very well, even with my stubby fingers. The animations make the GUI a joy to use, from the screen shooting away when you press the home button, to the fun wiggle when you want to customize the springboard, Apple has made the interface fun! The Safari web browser is the best mobile Internet browser in the world (save for the fact that flash isn't on the iPod touch or iPhone -- yet). Pages render perfectly and the zooming capabilities allow you to easily read any text on the screen. Once Apple gets flash out on the touch, this mobile browser will truly be a full fledged desktop-class browser. The recently added iTunes feature allows you to download music on the fly, as long as you're within the range of Wi-Fi, it's really nice to be able to download a song you hear while you're out and about. The YouTube button allows you to download a good amount of the content on YouTube since the iPod touch and iPhone can't currently utilize Flash. This helps make the devices feel more complete until Flash is available.

Video playback is available with most Quicktime files and .MP4 video. I wish Apple would squeeze some more video support into their iTunes and iPod systems, but for whatever reason we're stuck with only a couple of options. The good news is the .MP4 video encoded with H.264 is exceptionally high quality, truly HD and it looks amazing on the iPod touch and your computer. Luckily, tons of third party applications exist to quickly and easily convert most any video into a form usable by iTunes, the iPod, and AppleTV. One of my personal favorites is Handbrake, it allows you to easily rip a DVD to an iPod preset, it'll even deck the video out with an iTunes extension. iSquint is another great application to quickly convert video into an iPod-friendly form. We'll see what Apple does as far as additional video support...

The touch screen features 480X320 resolution which allows true widescreen viewing and is incredibly sharp and clear. It's significantly better than any screen I've seen on other media players, PDAs, and cellular phones. You can easily read all of the text on the screen, and photos are very clear.

Apple's screen lock engages automatically with the familiar sliding bar and helps prevent any accidental input while you're listening to music, and saves your battery from a premature drain when it's in your pocket.

A few things I'd like to see in future designs:

(1) Bluetooth for wireless connectivity to computers, headsets, and other devices. Many people thought Apple secretly shipped it disabled, but apparently not.

(2) Built-in speakers. The touch does have that clicker, but a real speaker or two would be nice for watching videos with friends and maybe for use as an alarm clock or other calendar-related features.

(3) Built-in camera. The iPhone has one, the touch would be a much more compelling device for people if it had a camera for some candid snapshots.

Maybe in the future, huh?

My one true problem with the nano is the stainless steel back. That thing is a fingerprint magnet! Just holding the touch in your hands is a sure-fire way to lay down 3 or 4 smears on the back, which I constantly have to wipe off. Apple includes a microfiber cleaning cloth to help shine the touch back up, but this has been a problem with virtually every iPod released. Things looked good when Apple released the iPhone since it's got a different backing, but then the touch came out with the same old stainless steel back. The new iPod classic, nano, and shuffle don't have this problem in their current design, we'll see what happens in the future. Also, as far as aesthetics, the iPod touch is beautiful...except for the Wi-Fi antenna in the back. It's a black piece of plastic in the top corner of the device. I really wish Apple would have just made a whole strip of the back this dark plastic to balance things out, but as-is, we've got a corner chunk of plastic. Not a big deal, but sort of surprising since Apple likes to brag about the smallest details in their designs.

Other than the fingerprint issue, and the plastic corner, the iPod touch is fairly perfect. The iPod touch is only gonna get better in the future, and it's already had an incredible start, so the future will be quite exciting. I think this is the direction Apple's other iPods are eventually gonna go and this device combined with the iPhone are probably gonna have a big impact on the technology world. With 8GB or 16GB of memory, these iPod's can hold a good amount of video, all my digital music library, and lots of photos. The small design and high tech touch screen are lots of fun. Go out and buy one!