Colossal Capabilities In Your Palm (Apple iPod touch 8 GB)

Member Name: DocDan3

Product:	Apple iPod touch 8 GB
Date:	10/05/09 (227 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Features, Ease of Use, Fun, Applications, Internet, Great Potential, Very Useful

Disadvantages: Chrome Back Scratches Easily

The iPod Touch is the ultimate gadget that you could own to this date. It is full of extremely useful features and enables you to listen to music, watch videos and make use of the Internet all in the palm of your hands. The first generation of the iPod Touch was released in September 2007 but its technology is still stunningly strong today. I will be reviewing the 8GB version, however there isn't much difference between this and the others besides the amount of memory you have to store music, videos, applications and photos.


· Technical Stuff . . .

An odd thing to notice on the iPod under settings is that the capacity is set to 7.1 GB already. This means 900 MB has disappeared into thin air. Therefore, I do query why the box says 8 GB but I imagine some of this has already been taken up with the default applications and settings. This version can hold either up to 1750 songs, 10,000 iPod-viewable photos or 10 hours of video. This gives you a relative idea of how much capacity the iPod has. I find my 8GB version more than enough currently with 481 songs, 72 videos, 138 photos and many applications. I still have 248 MB of space left too but can easily delete videos, which take up more space if I run low. I bought this iPod near to when it came out so it wasn't worth paying the huge extra difference in price to get one of the 16 GB or 32 GB versions. The iPod can play up to 22 hours of music (on lock mode) or run 5 hours of video with a full battery. I find the battery pretty good but with a large screen, it tends to run down fast if you have it on all the time or are playing powerful games. From experience, you can get a good charge from no battery in 2 hours. If you want a full charge, Apple recommend you charge it for 4 hours.


· The Look . . .

The iPod Touch has a very modern look with a lovely large screen. It weighs just 120g and is just over 10cm by 6cm with a 0.8cm depth in terms of dimensions. The back has a shiny chrome finish, which looks great when new, but quickly scratches. Due to this, I would recommend buying a case or a 'GelaSkin' from www.gelaskins.com. The best cases are made by Belkin, which are stylish and keep your iPod protected. The back identifies the iPod by capacity and you can have yours customised with a personal message engraved on the back. There are just two buttons - a sleep one on the top left, which clicks as well as a home button just below the screen. They are used for locking/switching off and accessing the main menu respectively. The screen is a 480 x 320 3.5" color LCD with a 3:2 aspect ratio. Along with built in wireless WIfi, the iPod Touch has all you need in a very confined space.


· In General . . .

So, what does the iPod Touch have on offer? Perhaps I should be asking what it doesn't have on offer? The iPod touch is identical in many ways to the phenomenal iPhone, but lacks the ability to use the Internet without a wireless hotspot nearby. This takes away the flexibility to check something on the Internet or go on Google Maps without a hotspot nearby. Nevertheless, many more places nowadays have hotspots available so you can easily find one and make use of it in a city. For example, McDonalds Restaurants all provide a free Wifi hotspot that you can connect to.


· The Box . . .

The iPod Touch comes in a very smart looking graphite coloured box. It has silver writing and a portrait picture of the iPod on the front. The box is small but contains everything you need. The iPod Touch has a film cover over it to protect it and it comfortably sits in the box in a special fitting to stop it moving. You get a small charging doc, which I think is pretty pointless along with a suede cleaning cloth, earphones, USB cable and vague instructions. The cleaning cloth is great and works very well. The earphones are Apple's latest with a very smooth design and they fit comfortably in your ear. They are white so look very modern and thankfully don't get too dirty through ordinary wear. The wire is of a perfect length and the sound quality is average, so I would recommend you buy another better-quality pair if you are looking for good sound. When you first connect the iPod to your computer with the USB cable, your iTunes will recognise the iPod and configure it to your computer. You need a relatively new computer (Mac OS X 10.4 or later) or Windows XP/Vista as well as the latest version of iTunes, which can be downloaded for free. You can add all your music, videos, photos and more to iTunes and have it automatically synced onto your iPod. With iTunes, you can make use of the excellent iTunes store where you can preview and buy music, videos, movies, podcasts and also the App Store where you can do the same with a variety of applications exclusively for the iPod Touch and iPhone.


· Using The iPod . . .

Using the iPod Touch couldn't be easier. The iPod comes with a 'Quick Start' guide, but it's really self-explanatory once you try it and get stuck in. The whole screen is a touch screen, so you simply scroll, flick, pinch and tap to navigate your way around. It all feels very natural and easy to do, adding to the fun of the iPod. Simple movements such as pinching the screen inwards and outwards with your thumb and index finger enable you to zoom in and out on web pages. You can merely scroll through songs, videos and menus with the swipe of a finger. The iPod also has a built in accelerometer so it detects movement, which comes in useful when using different features and applications. The calibration of the iPod Touch is fantastic and it feels very responsive. By holding your finger down on an application on the main screen, they will start to shake and you can move them around to your preference to customise it how you like.


· The Excellent Default Applications . . .

The iPod comes with a fair variety of applications, but you can buy potentially thousands from the App Store (not that you can fit them all on your iPod)! Firstly, Safari can be used as an Internet browser. It's the official browser for Apple and has a similar look to on a desktop computer. It's fast, very easy to use and simple. With the addition of a Google search bar, the Internet is at your fingertips quite literally. You can bookmark pages, view history and have usernames/passwords saved on sites too. Sites that have pages built for mobiles or the iPhone, will automatically load so that you can easily view them on your device. If not, don't worry as you can easily scroll around with your finger and zoom in and out whilst tapping to click.

The iPod Touch also comes with a calendar, which most iPods have. You can now view it in great colour with the ability to add events including dates, titles and even alerts for such events. You can scroll through every month and day with a clear view of any filed events. Such an application is very useful if you are on the phone to make a note of a meeting for example. If you don't navigate here quick enough, you can always tap on the Notes application to immediately have a keyboard at your fingertips to jot down a note. I always use this if I don't have a pen and paper handy, so it comes in very useful indeed. From the Notes, you can send them by email to someone and delete them when you are finished with them. The Mail application enables such functions to take place. You can set up accounts from the settings. Default email accounts can be from the following list: Microsoft Exchange, mobileme, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, AOL. You can also add your own email account created yourself. This is great if your main email address is an AOL one for example, as you can access your mail and send mail in a specially designed application at ease rather than navigating to your mail over Safari. Many links and applications along with other things on the iPod will use your mail account when it needs to if you have one set up.

Rather like on a phone, you can store contacts too. In the Contacts application, you can add their names, a photo, a phone number, an email address, postal address as well as a 'field', to identify who they are. It's great for storing people's information so you can use it when on the go. My favourite default application and feature has to be YouTube. You can watch videos from the famous and popular video-sharing site on your iPod Touch. Videos are automatically played in widescreen so you simply flip your iPod round to view it. You can search for videos as well as view featured ones and the 'most viewed', rather like on the website itself. Unfortunately, you cannot directly save videos from here to your iPod so you have to find a way of doing this on your computer. There is a default Weather application, in which you can add locations around the world to view the forecast - powered by Yahoo Weather. You can view the current temperature as well as each day's high/low as well as a symbol suggesting sun, cloud, rain or storms. You can customise the temperature units to your perforation of Celsius or Fahrenheit.

The applications don't stop there! Another one of my favourites is Google Maps. You can plan routes, search for locations or simply browse the earth for fun with full satellite views or as a map. The great thing about this application considering you cannot carry the Internet everywhere with you on the iPod Touch is that it saves routes created with an Internet connection. This means you can leave the hotspot and travel the route without the Internet. It will save intersections along with written directions so you can view and read where you are going, whether you are walking or driving. It's a great feature and can come in very useful! The most useless application for me has to be the Stocks - you can simply view stocks and their value over time. There is a very useful calculator on the iPod, which I recently found out could turn into a smart scientific calculator with functions such as logs and trigonometry. The 'Clock' application includes a world clock as well as the feature of adding places around the world. There is also an alarm, stopwatch and timer. The alarm is useful and contains a variety of audio alerts for the mono speaker the iPod has inside. Last but not least is the all-important Settings application. You can adjust everything here for all your other applications, as well as view information about your iPod. You can adjust the brightness to conserve battery (which I regularly do). Any applications from the App Store that have settings will appear here so you can access them.


· Music & Videos . . .

Your music is easily viewable on the iPod Touch either in menus or in a cover flow of album art by simply rotating your iPod. You can flick through your songs and tap them to listen or tap albums to view each song. When a song is playing, you can view the album artwork in the background (if there is any). The basic controls lie on the screen including play/pause, forward/back and volume. The top identifies the song's name, artist and album. You can also give the screen a tap to display the shuffle, repeat and scrubber controls. It's all very easy and efficient. The controls are similar when viewing videos. In the menu, you can see the name and duration of each video. Your photos can be synced directly from your computer and can appear in 'saved photos' too. It was only recently that I discovered by holding the home button before pressing the sleep button, you can take a screenshot. This is useful if you want to capture a picture from the Internet for example. They will be saved to your iPod for future reference.


· The iTunes & App Store . . .

When it comes to music, the iTunes store is the number one place to head. The store contains hundreds of thousands of songs that you can directly download to your iPod. This is an excellent feature if you have an iTunes account (which can be created for free). You can also download podcasts directly to your iPod as well as get a 30 second preview of every song. The iTunes store lets you view the top 10 songs in general in addition to every genre such as rock, pop and hip-hop. With the latest version 2 of the iPod Touch, there is a new addition - the App Store. The App Store has become huge over the last year as it offers an enormous range of useful applications and games for your iPod. Most are available to download directly to your iPod for free but some have to be paid for, which are usually worth it. If I had to choose my favourite application, it would have to be 'Facebook'. Everyone has a Facebook account nowadays and this free application lets you surf your profile, friends and even chat to them over your iPod. The format of the application is made for the iPod so makes it easy and enjoyable to use. My favourite game has to be Assassin's Creed at the moment. You can play a version similar to the gameboy for a small fee. The controls are excellent and it's a fun game to have when you get bored on your iPod. You can fight your way through many different areas with your sneaky abilities to assassinate people. Some other great games include the X-Plane range (originally a desktop flight simulator), where you can fly different planes using the iPod Touch accelerometer. Despite the default application, another very useful weather one is 'WeatherPro', which provides very accurate weather reports with all the details including satellite and radar maps. I could go on forever with the applications as there are so many good ones, but I'll stop there.


· A Few Last Words . . .

In conclusion, there isn't a doubt in my mind that the iPod Touch is by far the greatest MP4, definitely the best iPod and possibly the best gadget on the streets today. It offers everything you need and more! It's very easy and efficient to use. You can listen to your music and watch videos with fantastic interfaces and very natural controls. With wireless Wifi built in, you can make use of the internet in terms of browsing the web, watching YouTube videos and Google Maps along with so much more, not forgetting the fabulous iTunes and App stores. You can buy the older 1st Generation version for just £115 on amazon.co.uk - used and new. With the newer 2nd Generation in stores, the 1st Generation models are most probably not in production anymore but still available to buy second hand. I would highly recommend one as they are superb gadgets and enable you to do so much at such a good price - and it all fits in your pocket with no bulk!

Thanks for reading

Dan ©

Summary: Possibly the best gadget on the streets.

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