Apple iPod Touch 16GB

Price: $349.99 - $369.99

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Good Bang for the Buck09/19/07

Pros:

Great responsive touch screen, small profile

Cons:

Video quality could be much better, more accessories need to become available ASAP

Well Apple pulled another fast one on consumers.



They initially announced that the new iPods wouldn't be available

until the end of the month....well they lied...at least here in

MD/DC/VA they did.



So how is it?



Well for one...it's SKIIIIINNY...almost 1/2 the size width wise of

the ipod video so it fits pretty well into your pocket. It comes in

a nice package which this time around does NOT include an iTunes

installation disk. I guess Steve Jobs figues that most people who are getting this are already either iPod saavy and have iTunes or PC saavy and know how to find and download iTunes. I think that small thing right there may be a wrong move regardless if you have

millions already using your previous iPod

incarnations...never

assume that new customers are saavy enough to get things working.



That being said...how well does it work?



VERY well....the touch screen really gives a feeling of going thru

your collection and you can use it either in the regular mode or for

better results, turn it on its side to thumb thru your music. If you

are familiar with iPods, you will have no trouble using this one.

The video on here is pretty cool but this is where it loses cool

points. The problem on here is altho the resolution is pretty cool

w/o noticable loss of framerates, in dark scenes, they look pretty

dark and almost to the point that some scenes reflect back looking

like a photo negative. The short term solution is to try to adjust

the brightness screen to compensate and hopefully Apple may come up

with a fix for that



The Wifi? Pretty darned cool...one of the biggest features they

held over from the iPhone will be a big draw for a lot of people and

will set the bar up high for the next PMPs coming out. This is not a

watered down browser, it's a full working version of Safari. You can even migrate bookmarks from your IE or Safari for usage.



There is much one can do. And since iPod has introduced the ability

to pinch and stretch screens, it makes it somewhat fun to navigate.

Sometimes a page may load and clutters some of the objects up on the

screen but otherwise, this is one the best ways to surf w/o having

to resort to a laptop.



I tried the YouTube function and it ran with no problems.



The only other smalll complaint I have right now is for everything

it has, it still looks like a delicate product, like it's one good

drop away from being broken. I have a few thousand songs and a ton

of video on mine and thankfully it's backed up but think of how

pissed one would be to get one of these and it breaks within a few

days because of an accidental drop. Altho Apple has released these

already, they still haven't released any accessories to adequately

protect these devices from a good drop, so if you have one, be

careful....



Also, if you are a bit anal like me and want to keep up the gloss on

it,

t would hurt to buy a plastic screen protector, because altho

the surface doesn't look like it will scratch easily, because of all

the constant touching, the protector and a good cleaner will go a

long way to keeping up this investment.



My last wish for this would have been if Apple had added on an FM

Tuner.



That was one of the big ups that Microsoft's Zune had. A built in FM

Tuner would really sell this but, with all the FM add ons they have

for iPods now, my guess is that Apple didn't want thier 3rd party

folks to lose money on that either.



To sum it all up, if you want something cutting edge, I would say

that this a great device, 16 GB is a start, I wish there was more

but hey, it's a flash device so what can you do? Some are asking

are you afraid of getting burned like early iPhone adapters did? All

I can do is hope that I don't but I think these will move because

altho they got them in early, many places are selling out as soon as

they get them; even some of the store workers don't have any relying on us for feedback.On a scale of 1 to 5 I give it 4.