For better or worse, the iPod Touch is clearly the iPhone’s baby brother. Like most products that roll out of Apple, the Touch shows the love of committed designers, hardware engineers, and usability experts. The iPod Touch measures a slim and pocketable 4.3 inches by 2.4 inches by 0.31 inch, with an all-metal-and-glass design that feels as expensive as it looks. Because nothing will ruin a portable video player faster than a gouge across its screen, we’re happy to see that the face of the Touch uses the same scratch-resistant glass found on the iPhone. Most users will still want to buy a protective case, however, since the iPod Touch feels a little fragile and the back is covered with the glossy, scratch-prone, smudge-loving chrome exterior common to most iPods.

If you find yourself dazzled by the Web, video, and music capabilities of Apple’s iPhone but can’t stomach the contract commitment, the iPod Touch might be just what you’re looking for. Offered in 8GB ($299), 16GB ($399), and 32GB ($499) capacities, the iPod Touch is a premium-priced device with an attractive set of features for a midsize portable video player. Still, the Touch’s limited storage capacity makes it a difficult choice when held up to higher capacity products like the iPod Classic or Archos 605 WiFi.

There are only two physical buttons on the iPod Touch: a button on the face of the player used for calling up the main menu; and a screen deactivation button found on the top-left edge of the case. The iPod Touch is controlled largely using an icon-based touch-screen navigation menu nearly identical to the iPhone’s, but with greater emphasis placed on music, photo, and video playback.

The two design details that distinguish the iPod Touch from the iPhone are the downward-facing headphone jack and volume controls. In the absence of dedicated volume control buttons, the Touch gives users the ability to bring up an onscreen volume slider by double-clicking the main menu button. The same volume screen offers controls for playing, pausing, and skipping through tracks.

When it comes down to it, the iPod Touch’s most unique selling point is not its feature set, but its interface. You can find products that offer more features, as well as higher quality audio and video performance, but you won’t find any other product that can match the feeling you get using the iPod Touch interface. In the absence of jetpacks or flying cars, the futuristic novelty of zooming photos with a pinch of the finger or flying through your music collection in Cover Flow is difficult to quantify into a bullet point, but it is probably the most justifiable reason to invest in the Touch.

Features
The iPod Touch draws 99 percent of its features from the iPhone. While iPhone owners have zero incentive for buying the Touch, the rest of us now have a way to get our hands on many of the iPhone’s features without costly and contractual AT&T service plans. The bad news is that the iPod Touch does away with more than just the iPhone’s phone capabilities–it also gives up built-in speakers, microphone, camera, and Bluetooth. Remaining features such as a Safari Web browser, POP/IMAP e-mail, YouTube video portal, photo viewer, music player, video player, stock tracker, weather forecaster, notepad, and iTunes Wi-Fi music store still place the iPod Touch on the cutting edge for portable video players, however. In fact, at the time of this writing, the only product that can even compete with the iPod Touch’s combination of a Wi-Fi-enabled Web browser, wireless music store, wide-screen video playback, photo viewer, and audio player, is the Archos 605 WiFi.

Product summary

The good: The Apple iPod Touch has a large, video-worthy screen, a cutting-edge interface, and Wi-Fi Internet, e-mail, and music download capabilities.

The bad: The iPod Touch may cost too much for you, depending on your needs. It has a small capacity for a portable video player.

The bottom line: The iPod Touch is a beautiful product, inside and out, but prepare yourself for sticker shock.

Specifications: Device type: Digital player ; Flash memory installed: 32 GB ; Digital player supported digital audio standards: AAC , MP3 , WAV , AIFF , Audible , Apple Lossless ; See Detail here

Related to This Topic

• iPod Touch Features PDF Guide
• iPod Touch to Bluetooth Speakers

Posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm in Gadget   |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback URL