Apple iPod touch 8 GB

Author's product rating:   

Sound Quality	Excellent
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Look & Design	Excellent
Range of Features	Diverse
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	intuitive, stylish, fun, great music player, variety of features, internet function
Disadvantages:	fingerprints !  no camera, no built in speakers, only available in black currently

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

8GB iPod Touch

As my boyfriend's birthday approached, I was panicking as to what to get him as men are a nightmare to shop for and I really wanted to get something exciting. I noticed that he kept borrowing my ipod nano and initially planned to get him one of his own but on the Apple website I saw the ipod touch and worked out that if I got him that then I could steal it and use it!

From the Apple website, the 8GB iPod Touch cost me £199 with free postage and packing and a free optional engraving. I thought this was a reasonable price it was nice and simple to order it online. I chose the free engraving option and this enabled me to have a two line engraving on the back (top centre) of the ipod. Obviously, it is a very good idea to check your spelling at this point as the ipod cannot be returned due your mistakes when inputting the message to be engraved! The website also had an option for gift-wrapping, which cost around an additional £3 - this, included an attractive white origami box with a red elastic ribbon and a small gift card. It looked cute and I hate wrapping things up so I added this option! Delivery was speedy and I received the ipod touch two days later.

The accessories included the standard white headphones, the USB cable that enables data transfer and charging, a screen cloth, a stand and the quick start guide.

The Look.

When it arrived, I was pleased that the gift wrapping enabled me to open the iPod Touch to have a look at it and a play with it before my boyfriend's birthday!

I was very impressed with how the iPod Touch looked when I first got it out of the box. It was slimmer than I had expected it to be and felt like the perfect size and weight in my hand. The screen is a 3.5 inch colour display and the rest of the ipod front face is shiny black with only one actual 'button' which is centred at the bottom of the front face of the ipod touch and serves as the main menu button. The back face of the ipod touch is silver and works pretty well as a mirror so could be useful to check out your makeup! This is the face, which has the engraving on it if you chose that option. The engraving was done by laser and I was very impressed with the result, as it looked stylish along with the rest of the iPod Touch.

The top of the iPod Touch has the on off button which you need to hold down for a few seconds to turn it on or off. The base of the iPod Touch has the ports for the headphones and the USB connector.

At just 8mm in thickness, the iPod Touch is great to slip into your pocket or bag and my boyfriend has even worked out that it fits in the notes pouch of his wallet!

'Interface.

The whole idea behind the iPod Touch is that the touch screen is the main interface and is intended to be intuitive and innovative. I was sceptical about just how good the touch screen would be to use as I have used other gadgets with touch screens and not been very impressed. However, true to its work, the iPod Touch display is very intuitive.

The Apple website states that:

"The revolutionary multi-touch technology built into the gorgeous 3.5-inch display lets you pinch, zoom, scroll, and flick with your fingers."

This is very true and it is actually enjoyable and fun to use the touch screen. My boyfriend has had his iPod Touch for over two weeks now and still gets excited about how it works!!

The main menu button, which is just below the touch screen, can be pressed at anytime to take you back to the main menu page. This works well and I was amazed at how quick it is to get to grips with it.

Most of the time you would hold the iPod Touch vertically to use it however as you turn it on its side the whole screen rotates 90 degrees so that it becomes horizontal and wide screen! It's brilliant and is most useful for watching videos, viewing pictures and for some web pages that you want to view in wide screen.

Safari (Internet Browser)

One of my favourite features of the iPod Touch is the Safari web browser, which allows you to access the internet if you are somewhere that you can pick up a wireless network. Wireless broadband is becoming more and more popular in homes nowadays and there are also WiFi points available to the public out and about in cafes etc so it is becoming fairly accessible. I have found that my boyfriends iPod Touch is able to access broadband in my house and in his perfectly and is a great way of being able to browse the internet or check your email whilst mooching around the house, lazing in bed or sitting on the sofa and it saves all the hassle of switching on the computer! The internet settings on the iPod Touch allow you to enable JAVA and so you can access pretty much anything you would on your home computer.

Youtube

Extended from the internet function there is a separate menu button, which takes you straight to the YouTube website where you can search for and view any of the videos on there. My boyfriend loves this feature as he can watch all his favourite music videos and the picture quality of the widescreen is fantastic. The colour is crisp and better picture quality than my laptop screen!

Contacts.

The contacts feature enables you to enter names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses etc and serves well as an address book as you are likely to always have it on you! This feature is very well designed and it is easy to glide through the contacts and it links in to the map function so that you can locate the contacts address on the map and within the map feature use the contact as a point to navigate too or from. It also links to the mail feature so that you can tap a contacts email address and go straight to the email sending feature.

Map

This is another impressive feature and enables you to search a location on the map and enter a current location and a destination in order to get directions. It also offers real time traffic information, which is really useful. The map includes little pins showing the location of all of your contacts based on your address book. The map is easy to use and allows you to zoom in and out using the touch screen as well as to slide around the map to look at different areas. A brilliant feature!

Calendar.

This is the feature, which I feel transforms the iPod Touch from being far more than just a music player and moving into the realms of being a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). I rarely use the calendar function on my mobile phone or other digital technologies as they are simply too difficult to use and it is easier to use a traditional paper diary! However, the calendar function in the iPod Touch is really intuitive and useful. Due to the size of the screen, it makes it easy to use as an organiser. I have recently seen many mobile phones, which claim to be the only device you need, as they supposedly include everything you need. However I have found all of these horrible to use, over complicated and would actually prefer to carry a separate address book and diary, however I can see the potential for the iPod Touch replacing these items as it really is up to scratch in terms of replacing them. As it is something which you are likely to always have with you, it is compact, efficient and most important is easy to use.

Mail

This links in with the internet function but is a separate menu option, which allows the user to access their email account where they can manage their account, check their email and send them. Obviously, this is dependant on being in an area where you can access a WiFi point,

Weather.

This feature is a handy one, which at the tap of the menu icon enables you to view the weather of an area with the temperatures (day and night) for the next seven days. You can set it up to include a variety of weather reports for different areas. For example - on my boyfriends phone he has the weather information for where we live, but by simply sliding onto the next page, he can view the weather forecast in Cape Town, South Africa where his parents live. Then by sliding along another page, he can view the weather in Liverpool where his sister lives and by sliding along again, he can view the weather in the part of America where his brother lives. It is a nice way of keeping an eye on what the weather is going to do and it has allowed us to plan for days out based on the weather forecast,

Clock

The clock feature is similar to that of the weather and allows you to view the current time and date (although the time is also available on the main screen most of the time to allow you to glance at is as you would do a watch.) The clock function also enables you to set up a selection of different locations so that you can browse through the times in different areas of the world. This is particularly useful for my boyfriend as where his parents live in Africa along with many of his friends and his brother lives in America it enables him to check what time it is in their part of the world before ringing them (preventing accidentally calling them in the middle of the night!!)

Calculator

The calculator works as you would expect it to, however due to the touch screen I have found it much easier to use than the ones on mobile phones as it is similar to using a real calculator thanks to the size of the screen. It is another handy feature, which you will probably only use occasionally but it is nice to have on there.

Stocks

This feature is not one that really interests me (mainly because I don't really understand stocks!) and I doubt I would ever really use it however it enable you to check the stock market by just tapping the menu icon.

iTunes

iTunes is where you can purchase music, videos, games, audiobooks and tv shows. It is the application you will need to install on your computer to be able to link your iPod Touch to your computer in order to transfer music etc. iTunes is free to download to your computer and for convenience is already installed on the iPod Touch. It is also now possible to rent movies on iTunes much in the way you would do from a video store just all online!

It is important to note that you will need to update to the latest iTunes version on your computer in order for your iPod Touch to connect properly with your computer.

Notes

This is another feature, which contributes to the iPod Touch being used as a PDA. It is an easy to use function where you can input, save, edit or delete notes. For added effect as you type in the note, it is recorded on simulated notebook paper in a handwriting style font, which is quite cute. The notes function uses the touch screen qwerty keyboard, which is surprisingly easy to use. The predictive text function is also useful although can be a little annoying if it gets it wrong!

Storage

The iPod Touch which I brought for my boyfriend is the 8GB one and I am please with the storage capabilities of this as he has been able to put all of his music on there and a nice selection of photographs. It is capable of storing up to 1,750 songs, 10,000 photos, or up to10 hours of video.

The next size up is the 16GB one which costs £269 and has around double the storage capacity and the current largest memory size is the 32GB iPod Touch which has double the storage of the 16GB one and costs a whopping £329!

I think that with the 8GB it does not offer much scope for storing lots of videos but generally most people are more likely to use it mainly for music and photos as youtube allows access to such a wide range of videos.

Music

The main feature of the iPod Touch is to be able to store and play your music and this is certainly something it does well! In terms of music, it enables you to store a large number of songs and to view them by artist, album, song title, genre etc. You can create playlists easily and the overall feature is very intuitive. Scrolling through the music is easy and there as so many ways of looking through your music, that you can choose you preferred ways of using this feature. The music playback quality is great and volume can easily be adjusted using the sliding scale on the touch screen.

Pictures.

Another nice feature of the iPod Touch is that it enables you to store your photos on it. The display is such good quality that it is a great way of carrying your favourite photos around with you. By simply tapping the photos option on the main menu you can flick through your photos, view them in wide screen by turning the iPod Touch on its side and zoom in all just using your fingers!

Videos.

You can upload videos onto your iPod Touch using iTunes, although the more videos you put onto your iPod Touch, the less space for music and pictures. It is great to put on a film to watch at a time when you are bored such as on a train or on your lunch break at work!

Technical bits (explained!)

As I mentioned above in the storage section, this particular iPod Touch is the 8GB one, it is currently only available in black but I am sure they will soon come out with more colours as they have done with previous iPods.

The wireless works at 802.11 b/g (meaning that it works at a nice speedy pace!)

The colour display screen is 3.5 inch (diagonal) and is 320 by 480 pixels (nice clear, good quality screen).

The battery life for music playback is up to 22 hours and the batter life for video playback is up to 5 hours. On the basis that you will use it for a combination of its functions, I have found that generally the battery lasts around the 15 hours mark. The battery life is good, and it works well in that when you are uploading new music from your computer to your iPod Touch it is charging it at the same time. We have an iPod car charger, which is compatible with this iPod Touch and means that charging it is never a big deal as it can be done in the home or the car and it charges pretty quickly.

Main Advantages.

• Stylish design and ideal size (enables good sized screen but still fits in your pocket)
• Brilliant picture and sound quality
• Good range of features making it suitable as a form of PDA
• Intuitive and fun to use
• Good value for money (despite being expensive)
• Ability to connect to the internet in such an effective way is great
• well designed
• easy to connect to computer and simple to charge
• wide range of accessories available.

What it lacks / Main Disadvantages

Whilst I do think the iPod Touch is brilliant and I wish I had got it for myself rather than for my boyfriend, there are a few things that I feel it lacks.

Obviously, the price is a factor in what can be included and I am sure that if more features were added then the price would have to increase and it would become less sellable. However, I do feel that the iPod Touch could really benefit from having a camera built in. The camera functions on the iPhone are brilliant and it is a shame that they have not incorporated this into the iPod Touch. The other main thing, which I feel it lacks, is that it does not have in built speakers. Obviously the main function of the iPod Touch is as a music player and the headphones do provide good quality sound and most of the time this suits the users needs, however it would be nice to have inbuilt speakers similar to how the iPhone works. Although this can be got around by purchasing speakers for it as accessories.

More of a minor complaint but it would also have made sense if Apple had built in a Bluetooth function for easier data transfer and so that iPod Touch's could interact with each other.

Perhaps it would also have been nice if the iPod Touch had included some simple games like those on the iPod Nano (solitaire etc). Although obviously due to being able to access the internet games can be played in that way and it appears that you can purchase and download games from iTunes.

The iPod Touch is currently only available in black, which may disappoint some although I am sure they will soon release it in a variety of colours.

The main annoyance that I have encountered is the issue of fingerprints. Being a touch screen, you would expect fingerprints to a degree but this really is extreme! The mirrored back, whilst being stylish in design, is a nightmare for fingerprints as within seconds of use it is absolutely covered!! You can purchase a variety of protectors and covers to prevent this and the polishing cloth, which comes with the iPod Touch, will undoubtedly be used to death!

One final point, which I feel, could have been considered is that it would have been nice if it was possible to save photos or pictures that you come across on the internet in your pictures area. For example - if you were able to save a photo from the facebook website. This isn't a crucial requirement it might just have been a reasonable subsitiute for the fact that the iPod Touch does not have a built in camera.

Summary

Overall I think the iPod Touch is brilliant. It does lack a few features which I have mentioned above but it is such a nice little device that is discreet, so easy to use that until you have had a go on one you really can't imagine just how easy it is! At almost £200 it isn't cheap but I do think it is worth it. There are plenty of accessories available including covers to protect from all those fingerprints! Considering that it is a touch screen, the device itself feels nicely robust and is made to a high quality. It by far beats any other music players that I have seen or used and as Apple advance the technology futher to add more features it can only get better! Definitely a great music player, very useful as a PDA and a great exciting gift to give someone although you will end up wishing you had brought it for yourself!!