Apple iPod touch 8GB Latest version

Crafty Marie

at 1:17 pm

I was looking for a small device which would let me play music, audiobooks, surf the Internet and email. After reading lots of reviews, I narrowed it down to Archos 5 120GB Internet Media Tablet WiFi 5″,High Resolution Touch Screen 800×480 pixels,convenient leg stand. and the Ipod Touch.

In the end the fantastic price of the ipod Touch won me over and I’m glad it did.

There are always going to be people who argue, it doesn’t do this, it doesn’t do that. But what it does do is an incredible amount of functions and does them all very well. At the apple app store you will find many free and low-priced apps which are great – including games. I certainly recommend you get the free battery magic app which shows you in detail how much battery life you have left and how many hours of audio, www or games that translates into.

Had no problems hooking up to our wireless broadband to get on the Internet. Surfing the Internet is very easy and you can quickly zoom in and out of pages with a finger pinching movement over the screen. You can open multiple windows which you can’t on some small devices. Typing on the screen (say if you’re on a forum) is much easier than you’d think and fast. I’ve written quite lengthy posts with it.

You can set up multiple email accounts to download your messages onto your ipod – very easy to do. There is a calendar where you can set up birthdays and events. The clock function is brilliant, it also has a timer alarm and I’ve used it several times to remind me when to remove puddings from the oven.

Music-wise brilliant (if you use your own headphones and not the supplied ones!) although I mostly use it for audiobooks. It remembers where I last listened up to and resumes from there.

If you download a free app called Stanza, you can read ebooks on the device. You might think reading off a small screen is too hard but it is very comfortable and stanza lets you adjust text size to suit. Great for whiling away the time if you’re stuck waiting for something.

All-in-all this is the best gadget I own – no it doesn’t take photos or video but I’m glad about that because if it did it would a have to be a lot bigger and b would cost a lot more. Great item
Rating: 5 / 5

Creative Critic

at 3:53 pm

I have never really been an Apple fan, but they have got it right with this device.

Everything that I have ever done on a Windows-based PDA or Smartphone is totally overwhelmed by the user experience in the touch interface on this device – things install and uninstall seemlessly, apps are cheap or – more often – free, the orientation works well, the video capabilities are great, the browser (Safari) handles most websites really well. Being able to dab at the screen with my oversize digits, without needing to pull out a stylus, is a real gift. Even iTunes, which is necessary to put your music and other data on the device, can be set to be relatively unintrusive on your PC.

However, a few things that bug me are the “walled garden” inside which everything works – I, being a bit techy, would like to see more of the inner workings – how much memory is being used, how efficient the file system is, whether or not uninstalling an app really clears it from the memory etc, but we are protected friom analysing any of this data.

Secondly, this device has a photo viewer, and photo software, but no camera. Even the new iPod Nano has a camera, as does the iPhone – why not one in the iPod Touch?

The device does not support Flash – this is a major problem, given how much Flash is used on the web – come on Apple and Adobe, sort it out – even my Windows phone and my Wii support Flash, and Flash Video is the ubiquitous standard for video on the web.

Although this does have Wi-Fi capabilities, sometimes I want to use web-centric apps (which, face it, are most of the apps!) when I am not in a Wi-Fi area, but do have 3G coverage on my phone. I have found I can pair this very successfully with my Windows Phone (running WM WiFi Router) to create a local Wireless LAN that the iPod Touch can use to browse the web etc.

Final comment – even though the battery life is good, buy a 2nd charger to use wherever you go – work AND home is a good plan. Oh, and it doesn’t come with any protection – so get a good case and screen protectors too.
Rating: 4 / 5

Jonathan Ball

at 5:56 pm

Other reviews have given a detailed and largely accurate asessment of the iPod touch 8GB. I’ve tried pretty much every brand of MP3 and media player over the last 7 years or so and if you want an amazing media player at a very decent price, get this ahead of anything else. It’s well built, feature packed and the user interface really is a joy to use.

If, however, you are going to be a very heavy user and have a large media collection, it’s well worth splashing out for the 32GB version. I have played with one at length – it’s a bit better at handling 3D games and it’s definitely a bit faster at loading apps. I still went for the 8GB (really a 7GB) as it’s more than enough for my needs and the web browsing/playing media experience is identical.

My only criticism is that Apple have inexplicably decided to be tight and only bundle the standard (rubbish) iPod headphones, instead of the ones with a mic included with the 32GB and 64GB versions. Add a few quid to the price and include the earphones I need to record voice memos please!

As for reliability, only time will tell but it has been faultless in the few weeks of use I’ve given it. A couple of my friends have the 1st Generation iPod touch and they’re still going strong. Battery life is excellent with wifi off, too!
Rating: 5 / 5