Back in July I decided to take the leap! It was time to upgrade my iPod to the nice shiny (no button) type called the iPod Touch. After many hours of searching the internet and the high streets for the best price I decided on Tesco, one of those pick it up and chuck it in the trolley purchases. I paid £165 for this, however it is now down to £149 in Currys for the new software version with a free speaker and iTunes voucher, damn I should have waited!

I chose the 8GB version, there is also a 16GB and a 32GB version but I would never be able to fill such a huge amount of memory so stuck to the cheapest option.

So before I start rambling on about how good this little device is I will describe what it does. The famous iPod that is basically a fancy MP3 player for playing music has been reborn! Not only does this new iPod play music, it can now be used to surf the internet, show photos and videos, watch tv on BBC iPlayer and even make phone calls on Skype. There are many other things this iPod can do but I will explain them later on in the review.

So it was time to open my new iPod. What was in the box?

It took me a while to get in but once I cracked the fancy case open inside I found:

The lovely looking iPod Touch (Black glossy finish on the front and a mirrored silver back)
A Cable
Earphones
Polishing cloth
And instructions

Not much for £169? That's what I thought until I set the device up.

The iPod was rather simple to set up... I have read another review about the lack of instructions included with the iPod, this is true but I managed to do it and it was not as daunting as I thought it would be. Just downloaded the new iTunes free from the Apple website, plugged in the iPod and it sprang to life after a little data input!

Putting the songs on the iPod was very simple indeed. My music library from my computer was automatically updated by iTunes within five minutes and the iPod was ready to go once charged, it was fully charged in under an hour which is very quick for a device like this.

The iPod feels very nicely balanced in the hand and although its quite wide and long it is the perfect size to pop in to a pocket when not in use, it is also very thin but feels very sturdy and light in the hand.

Once the iPod is turned on you are greeted with a very nicely set out home page with square symbols that you simply tap to open the application. Time to test the music side of the iPod. I clicked the music symbol at the bottom of the screen and up popped a huge list of songs, very neatly set out in alphabetical order and both the song name and artist is displayed making it very easy to find your desired song. I clicked a random song and didn't expect any sound as my earphones were not plugged in, but I was wrong. Unknown to me, these new iPods have a speaker built in, very handy! Although the quality and volume of the speaker is not perfect it is still very handy to have.

The iPod menu is very easy to use, it was not that long until I had all of my applications stored on the iPod such as Facebook, games and even Google Earth. It was at this moment that I realised my laptop was not going to get as much use as my lovely new black shiny device.

The iPod also has internet capabilities. A wireless LAN internet connection is built into the iPod so you can use your iPod anywhere that has Wifi available, you can surf the web, download music and yes! Dooyoo works on the iPod. The screen is not small but most people would think it would be too small to view internet pages with ease. True, it is quite small for internet use but now I am used to using the iPod I find it very easy. If you want to zoom in on any page just simply swipe two fingers on the screen, you can zoom all the way in and back out again so no more straining your eyes on the screen.

Most people would think the iPod is slow on the internet side of things, but no! It is very speedy at loading pages, much faster than any mobile phone or most laptops I have used. Youtube videos are also loaded very quickly with no skipping or jumping and perfect quality. I have used the iPod for many BBC iPlayer shows and not one has stopped halfway through. I now watch all of the soaps on the iPod throughout the day, not only has this replaced my laptop but my Tv too.

All of the features on the iPod work fantastic, all of the applications I have downloaded are working 100%, Msn messenger is very handy to have and although the on screen keyboard is quite small it is very easy to use once you get the hang of it!

Battery life
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The battery on the iPod is just fantastic! I am not too sure about the actual statistics but I believe it is around 20 hours of music. I find it lasts me an average of a week of general use and I use it everyday! Not just for music, I check my emails, play games etc. It is very easy to charge, just plug it into the computer and an hour later its done. There are also a few docking stations you can get which will charge your iPod as you listen to your tracks. These are great if you do not like using earphones and want to share your music.

Ease of use
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In my opinion I would say this iPod is extremely easy to use. There are no fiddly buttons to use and the touch screen is very accurate. All of the menus are easy to use and if you ever get stuck there is a user guide built into the settings menu. I have never had to use this but it is handy to have.

Durability
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Well mine has lasted 5 months, which means it is very durable. I am a very clumsy person and dropping phones and iPods is a daily routine for me! I have once dropped this on concrete, I expected the glass screen to be in pieces but I picked it up with just a few dents. Not too bad at all. One thing I do not like about the iPod is how easy it is to scratch the back. The polished back scratches extremely easily and mine is beyond polishing now. The screen however is much harder to scratch. Being made of glass it is hard to scratch but I would believe its easy to break. I reckon I have been lucky so far.

Any problems?
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Only two things that slightly let the iPod Touch down. The main one being the screen, there is nothing wrong with the quality at all but it is a total grease magnet. Greasy fingers can leaves marks all over your screen and it's not always convenient to polish your screen every time you use it. It's not really a problem as I cannot see how Apple can alter this, I guess people should wash their hands thouroughly before use.

The second problem that sometimes occurs is freezing! Sometimes the iPod can just come to a stop and freeze, the only way to recover this is to turn it off and on often losing the internet page or song you are on. I believe this is a software issue on mine and it has most probably been resolved in the newer iPods. This does not happen very often though, but it can be annoying!

Overall opinion
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I love my iPod and would not change it (Unless a newer version is released). It does so much for such a small device and it has replaced many items in our house, obviously I could not type this review on the iPod (Well I could but it would take a very long time!) but it still impresses me hugely. I have heard that the new software version has a bigger keyboard so who knows, one of these days us dooyoo'ers could well be typing on our iPods.

Thanks for reading