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Apple iPod touch (4G) 32 GB
by sarahrichmond5
I recently bought this Ipod for my son. I had done quite a bit of research into it and it seemed like the best one for the money. I had previously had the IPod 2nd gen and we wanted an upgrade so we could get the latest games and features.
This is perfect for my son, i bought it on ebay from a store and paid around £130 ... which was a good price compared to what you can pay on the highstreet which can be anything upto £250.
We have found the Ipod very easy to use he is 10 and has had no problems setting it all up. The great thing about this from a parents point of view is that you can put parental controls on it and therefore limit what he has access to.
The features it has are amazing. You can get thousands of differnt apps from the app store, alot of these are free. There are fun games and also educational games. This 4th generation ipod has a 2 way camera so you can take pictures of yourself and this also means you can use 'facetime' which is an app where you can talk to your family and friends and see them at the same time! very exciting if you are 10 ha! It is also possible to text people from this device which I was quite surprised about! it pretty much does everything the Iphone does apart from its not a phone. You can access all the social network sites eg facebook/twitter. I bought a case which has shock protection because it has been dropped accidently quite a few times alredy so if you are getting it for a child its probably worth investing in because his is still in perfect condition and im sure its down to this.
The IPOd can link with other devices so 2 people can play a game against each other.
The ipod comes with a charger and also a lead which connects it to the computer it also has warrenty.
We travel quite a lot and i have found this invaluable for long journeys it keeps him quiet for hours! bliss for any parent!
The Ipod touch comes in a variety of GB, we chose the 16GB one but we could have managed easily with the 8GB one and if you need even more you can get the 32gb one. The screen is 3.5 inch so is a good size and the display is sharp and lifelike. Here is the product info:-
Brand - Apple
Model - iPod Touch 4th Generation (16 GB)
Battery Run Time - Up to40 Hours
Dimensions - Width 5.89 cm, Depth 0.71 cm, Height 11.17 cm, Weight 100.92 gm
Connectivity Interfaces - Bluetooth, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi
Power Source- Internal Battery, Rechargeable via USB cable
Number Of Songs - 3500
I would definately recommend this product its great.
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Apple iPod touch (4G) 8 GB
by funkyshoes3
Packaging and Accessories
As far as I know the IPod touch packaging is all the same no matter if you buy it online or through a shop. The iPod touch that I own is black in color and has 8 GB of storage. The IPod touch comes in traditional apple packaging. That is the box is made out of a clear plastic and the device that you ... have bought is right on top of the device. On the sides of the box is the silver writing that says iPod touch and there is also the apple logo on the box. On the back of the box there are the specifications of the device and there is also what is included in the box. Once you tear of the plastic then you can lift the plastic lid of the box.
When you open the box you lift out the iPod touch which is resting on top and then you see this little cover which houses all the books about learning to use the device and warranty's and such. Once you lift the books out of the box there is another compartment which houses the usb cable that the IPod touch uses to charge and to connect to the computer. There is also the wall charger that comes with the device and the typical apple white earphones that come with all apple devices like this. The device also comes with two apple stickers which are pretty cool. All the accessories like the earphones are separated by a clear plastic cover which is very easy to take off. I think that overall apple have done an excellent job of presenting the iPod touch and also packaging the device, everything is easy to take out and open up and I have no doubts that everything would be protected in transport.
Specifications
Height: 4.4 inches (111.0 mm)
Width: 2.32 inches (58.9 mm)
Depth: 0.28 inch (7.2 mm)
Weight: 3.56 ounces (101 grams)
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
960-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch
Music playback time: Up to 40 hours when fully charged
Video playback time: Up to 7 hours when fully charged
http://support.apple.com/kb/sp594
Build and Features
The iPod touch that I have bought is black but you can also but the iPod touch in white. It is black on the front and has a big black button on the front of the device which acts as a home button and does other things. There is also a front facing camera which is used for video and face time and so on. The front also houses the 3.5 inch touch screen which is covered in strong glass. The sides and back of the device are all made out of a shiny metal which I think is aluminium. On top of the device are the lock and power button, and nothing else. On the right side of the iPod touch is the volume the buttons which are up and down. On the bottom of the device are the usb cable connector and the speakers. On the left side of the device there is nothing at all. All of the buttons are very easy to find and use, they are black in color and they are raised slightly for easy use. On the back of the device is also the rear facing camera which is 5 megapixel and is able to shoot HD video. There is no support for external memory like a micro SD card.
The actual finish of the device is brilliant and you can tell it has been made with good quality material. The black color on the front is very glossy and sleek, which makes the device look very clean and cool. The glass on the front is very easy to clean and is very durable. The screen does well to resist scratches and some fingerprints but you do have to clean it often to keep it looking clean. As I have previously mentioned the back of the device is made out of a shiny metal material which does show up fingerprints and scratches very easily so you have to be careful when using the device not to scratch it, however it is quite easy to buy a case to stop this from happening. All of the buttons are easy to use overall I think that the build quality is again excellent from apple. The back can be a problem but I think that the metal makes the iPod touch look better and it also feels better in the hand when in use.
Features/Sound Quality/ Other.
I have previously mentioned there are two cameras on the iPod touch, one on the front and one on the back, the front facing camera can be used to face time or to take pictures, the camera is actually quite good for a front facing camera. The pictures are not that good but for video quality it is very good for face time. The camera that is on the back is also very good quality, it shoots full 720 p hd video and also allows for some very good photos, it is not as good as some other cameras on phones but it does is a very good job. Neither of the cameras come with an led flash so that means that the ipod is not to good for taking photos or video at night or in low light conditions.
The sound quality is great when using headphones, as you would expect, but the speakers are also very good quality. They are quite loud and do become distorted on some of the songs that you play but other than that the sound is very good. The bass in ok but could be improved and you cannot hear all the instruments or vocals but it does produce a good quality sound. The apple headphones that come with the iPod touch are ok, they are durable and they can last awhile but the sound isn't too good, they leak a lot of sound and you don't hear all of the instruments. The bass is ok for in ear headphones but they could be improved. The best thing about the apple headphones are that they do go up to quite a loud volume on most songs.
On top of the newer features you also have quite a few features that are available to other devices such as a calendar, being able to access your emails through the Ipod Touch through something like the gmail app. You also have other usual features such as being able to take pictures and video, and with the Ipod Touch you have something called the Game Centre where if you create an account you can play some games that are pre installed in the game.
Another cool feature is that you have multiple home screens and you can have many apps stored on each one. But if you scroll all the way to the left then it comes up with a little search box and a keyboard where you can search the device. I like this feature a lot because it makes it so much easier to find something on the device, especially if you have loads of things stored on the Ipod Touch like me.
Overall when buying and using an Ipod you want the media capabilities to be excellent because that's the reason you are buying it and i think that the Ipod touch is a great device to listen to music and watch films on, although the screen size can be quite small for films. The Ipod is exceptional at playing music and it can play many different file types and that's the same for films as well. I think that this is a great product to buy if you are an avid music fan.
Good Points
There are many good things about the iPod touch 4th gen. the first thing is that there is literally no lag at all when using the device, especially when dealing with large amounts of information like when selecting and listening to music. This is due to the hardware of the iPod touch as well as the software which is Ios and I have mentioned before it runs smoothly and without any problems what so ever.
There are a few great things about ios, one of the great things is how it upgrades easily and you are always getting new features, recently you can upgrade to ios 6 which has a bunch of new features. And usually you can upgrade the software more than once if they choose to release big updates which they usually do each year. Although not all updates are comparable with every model.
Included on the ipod like the Ipad and the Iphone is the app store which is a marketplace for all the apps that are available to the ipod touch. There are hundreds of thousands of apps available to download, these can be both free and ones that you buy. I think that it is a great feature and it is very easy to use, you can easily search for the things that you want and you can just download it. I have yet to download an app that does not work perfectly on the Ipod Touch.
You cannot call or text people off an iPod touch at least not like you can on a phone, however you can download apps that allow you to text and call people and some of them are for free, however an Ipod is not as phone and so if you are buying it then you are likely to be using it as just a media device. Although you cannot call and text people you can do something called facetime which is when you use the front facing camera to video call someone, to facetime you must have a wifi connection and the person that you are facetiming must also be able to facetime. I have used Facetime a few times and i think that it is a very cool feature and would be good for some people but i find that i do not use it very much. There are many more features on the operating system but there are too many to review all of them however overall the operating system on ios is excellent, it is very simple, easy to use and I have never had any substantial problems with my iPod touch.
There are many other good things about the iPod touch 8 GB like the screen; it is retina which means that it has an incredible resolution and the screen is excellent. Like i previously mentioned the screen is around 3.5 inches diagonally which means that it is a really good size, however if you are watching a video like a film or trying to read text it sometimes can be difficult. If you do continue to read or watch something on the Ipod Touch then the text or video,is very clear and you can easily read text and watch videos without any trouble. The screen does attract finger prints and some scratches however this does not affect the overall experience of using the screen. The screen can be easily seen in the sun and has some great viewing angles because the screen is very bright and vivid and pictures and other things are great on the iPod touch.
As the iPod touch is actually centered on music the music player that comes with the iPod is excellent. The layout is very good and easy to use, you just scroll and touch when you want to play a different song or if you want to change category, this makes it easy to listen to music which is the purpose of the iPod. This music player is excellent in my opinion and beats most others that come with other devices; the colour scheme is also very good in my opinion because the text is very easy to read so you know which song to click on to.
The Ipod does have most of the features that you would expect such as the ability to create playlists and sort through your music by albums or artists and other cool things like the ability to mess around with the settings to change how the music sounds. The music interface is very easy to use and creating a playlist is easy because you can do it on the computer, you create a new playlist and add songs to it and then when your Ipod syncs to your computer it will be added to the Ipod.
There are so many things that are good with the Ipod touch that i cannot review all of them but overall the Ipod touch is a great device and there are only a few things that could be improved, i have mentioned what i feel are the most important points with the device but there are loads of other things that could be seen as great features.
Bad Points
There are a few things that I don't like about the IPod touch 4th gen, the first thing is the metal that is used to on the back becomes very scratched very quickly. The actual build is great and I think the metal looks cool but it really takes away the finish of the device when you turn it round and it is heavily scratched. Also the metal attracts finger prints and grease, which can become very annoying to clean and again takes away from the finish of the device, also if you put the iPod touch in your pocket that is filled with coins then the back will be scratched easily.
Another thing that I don't like about the IPod touch is that it has no expandable memory. This is common with most of apples products like the iPhone, and the reason I think it is bad is because if you listen to a lot of music or have a lot of apps you are limited to a certain amount because of the size of the iPod, and if you want to upgrade to a bigger size it costs you quite a bit more money. I think that if you buy a bigger sized iPod it is ok, but even if you have a 32 GB iPod you can still run into problems if you watch films and so on.
There is only one other thing that I can think of a bad thing with the iPod range is that you can only sync the iPod to one computer, this isn't such a bad thing in most cases but if you want to charge it on another computer it will sync all of you stuff to this computer which means you can lose all of your music. Like I said this isn't such a bad thing if you aren't going to move the iPod between different computers but you still can lose our stuff which I think is one bad thing.
Other than those bad points I can't really think of anything else the headphones is not the best but you get what you pay for and these in ear apple are cheap, the sound matches the price and so I have no complaints about the sound quality for this price and they seem to last quite a long time, but as they come free with the device I don't really see it as a big problem.
Conclusion
Overall I think that the IPod touch is an excellent product with very few problems. The screen and build quality is brilliant, as is the upgraded face time camera and the new operating system. There are few things that I think effect the score but only slightly, the metal back feels great but becomes scratched very easily, also it attracts fingerprints and grease. There is also no ability to expand the memory which is an obvious thing with most apple products. I think that the iPod touch is priced better now because it is a lot older but it should be pretty good for the price now in my opinion. I would rate the IPod touch 4.5 out of 5 stars.
I do like how although the Ipod touch is centered around music and the product focuses on its media capabilities it can still be used for many other things such as playing games, taking pictures and films and so on and i think that is what makes the Ipod Touch much better then the competitors because it is a Entertainment device as well.
Recommendation
I would definitely recommend this product to anyone as I think it is a great product. However soon the new generation iPod touch will become available and so you may want to hold on to see if you prefer that or to see if the price drops on the 4th generation at least then you'll still be able to get a great product but for less money.
I have found that the 8GB Ipod touch is the best deal because it have a good amount of storage but it is still in between in price, the price has dropped now because of the new generation being released and it may be even cheaper, however you can still buy the Ipod touch in other variants like the 32gb and 64gb versions, these can be more expensive.
Where to Buy
You can buy the IPod touch 4th gen from many online retailers like Amazon for around £130 - £140 You can also buy the iPod touch in different sizes and colors which may affect the price. You can buy them in different stores like PC world and so on for around the same price as Amazon
Thank you for reading my Review on the Ipod Touch 4th Generation 8GB version.
Funkyshoes3.
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Apple iPod shuffle (2G) 2 GB
by staceyspiers
The iPod shuffle is a polarising product, some loved it, some didn't understand it. Unlike the gps/phone/internet browser/music player/games console/note pad that is the iphone/ipod touch, the ipod shuffle has one function, and it does that well.
That function is 'being the smallest ipod in the world ever'. This leaves no ... space for a screen, and barely room for controls. No screen is the products gimmick, you never know what's coming next- only having 2gb of space actually works well in this case as you can usually keep skipping to find a song you like. With only 2gb you will find yourself replenishing your music regularly, don't use the ipod shuffle as a main music player, they're cheap enough to use it for a secondary 'specific purpose' music player.
For many people that 'specific purpose' might be walking to work, or for some (like me) it might mean a running companion. For this the clip is a life saver, as a heavy hard drive based ipod in your pocked bouncing up and down and crashing every 10 seconds is not as pleasant as the tiny, weightless, clipped-on-to-your shirt, flash based shuffle providing you with musical delights you've picked specifically for the task- shuffle works well when you just want hands free music.
They are really cheap, and they look great with the new aluminium fascia (much better than the white ones), so just get one!
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