So I’ve had my iPod touch for a few weeks now. It’s the 8GB version which for me, holds around 1600 songs which is about the size of my iTunes library. I’m going to review the iPod Touch on:
- Looks
- Storage
- Battery Life
- Controls
- Music
- Video
- Web
- Features
First off…
Looks
The iPod touch has striking looks. I don’t know if anyone could find it anything other than aesthetically pleasing. Everything from the tradition silver back to the simple black face with grey trim. It really is a beautiful design. The only gripe I have is the black WiFi antenna on the back. Who every though making that black was a great idea? I’m sure that if the designers had spent 5 minutes sitting down for a good think they’d have come up with a way to integrate this into the silver back. However, one minor flaw in an otherwise perfect design.
The screen is 3.5″ which is a really good size for watching videos and browsing YouTube on the go and the home button is well placed and the perfect size for pressing with your thumb, even when the iPod is turned on it’s side.
Storage
The storage capacity of the 8GB iPod touch isn’t massive by todays standards but you still get 1600 songs on it which in my opinion isn’t too bad. That is without any videos on the iPod so expect this figure to drop dramatically the more videos you manage to get on it. Apple’s quoted figure is 10 hours of video which I would assume is MPEG4 encoded.
Battery Life
Apple claim up to 22 hours Music and 5 hours video. I’m inclined to say about 4 hours video and 15 hours music, although I do mess around a lot while I’m playing music (It seems a shame to waste a touch screen on just skipping songs). So the average user could probably get 2-3 hours usage (video, web, music) from a single charge.
Controls
The touch screen interface is remarkably simple to use. Just drag around the screen wherever you want. Tap on buttons to use them and click on sliders or slide them to slide them wherever you want. The coolest thing however is zooming in on photo’s. Pinch your fingers together or slide them apart to zoom out or in.
The keyboard is neat, but if like me and you have decent sized (fat) fingers then you might find it a bit of a problem. With one finger I’m okay but when I start to type with both hands it gets a bit out of control. The iPod keyboard software is good at correcting mistakes and it takes a BlackBerry like approach to full stops. tap space twice and it inserts a full stop and a space and allows you to continue on typing. Overall I like the keyboard on the iPod touch, but I still prefer a full size keyboard and the feel of actual keys at your fingertips.
Music
There isn’t a lot to say about the music on the iPod touch, it is an iPod after all. The sound quality, even through the standard iPod headphones is extremely good. The depth and clarity of the sound is excellent and if you pair it with a good pair of headphones such as the Sennheiser CX300 the sound is immense. The volume is adequate if not loud and the range of volume is good. Sound doesn’t get a lot better than this. I’d say the iPod touch is clearly on-par if not better than any creative or sony MP3 player I’ve ever owned.
Video
Like I said, I only use my iPod for listening to music but I do however look at a lot of videos on YouTube and I’m extremely pleased to say that the quality of the videos on the 3.5″ screen is great. There is none of the blurriness you usually get on YouTube and the videos fit the widescreen perfectly. You can only view YouTube videos landscape but they adapt to fit the widescreen well.
Web
Safari is by far the best mobile browser out. You can view full html web pages just as you can with a regular web browser. If you want to read a section, double click on it and Safari will automatically zoom it in to the right size. Double click and you will zoom back out again. You can also use the pinch/unpinch method for zooming in and out.
No flash plugin as of yet but from rumors around the internet I feel that it may be (hopefully) in the works.
Apart from the lack of flash, Safari is just as good as using a full web browser on a PC, if not better. Web pages can be viewed in either horizontal or landscape mode and JavaScript is fully supported. You can have multiple tabs open in safari at the one time and it lets you bookmark pages just like a regular browser. I personally feel that Safari is a little slower at rendering web pages than a PC but for the size/processing power it’s amazingly fast.
Features
I’ve covered the main features of the iPod touch already. The feature that makes the iPod touch worth having is the inclusion of WiFi (even if the antenna is out of place). WiFi lets you connect your iPod touch to the internet wirelessly if you have a wireless hotspot/router nearby. It makes the high price tag worth it.
There is something else worth a mention and that’s JailBreaking. JailBreaking is basically hacking your iPods firmware to allow 3rd party applications to be installed. I’ve JailBroken my iPod and have installed loads of 3rd party applications. Some of the most useful applications are PDF reader, eBook reader, Sketchpad, Emulators, Networking tools and Theme managers. This basically turns the iPod touch into a PDA which allows you to read books on the go, play games, network with all your files and change the look and feel of your iPod more than the original Apple software allows.
For me this is the attraction of the iPod Touch. The freedom to do whatever you want with it. Here’s a screen of my iPod Touch
Looks much better. Now I can read on the bus, play my old GameBoy Advance/NES/PSX games on the go and ping my heart out with the command line network tools.
Conclusion
Just to recap:
pros:
Great screen, beautiful design, built in wifi, 3rd party applications, touchscreen, youtube, safari.
cons:
High price tag, low capacity, fiddly keyboard (but not too fiddly), crappy bundled headphones
If your looking for an iPod to play music and music only, or only the occasional video, I’d personally save myself a lot of cash and buy an iPod nano or get myself a bigger capacity by going for the video. If you want a PDA/Music Player/Mobile Web Browser/eBook Reader/YouTube Browser/Video Player/Anything you want it to be then I’d strongly suggest you get an iPod Touch. It’s not without it’s cons but I think the pro’s more than outweigh them.