iPod touch review from a consumer perspective
by Pierre Boisvenue.
December 14, 2007
The idea of a personal portable lightweight media player always appealed to me.
Why? I guess because that we spend a lot of time waiting, waiting for services
of any kind and why not spent that time listening to music, podcast or movie. The Sony portable play station PSP served me well in that
department with its large screen but was limited by its disk capacity and is
much more heavier the iPod Touch. This is my first apple product and feels like
I'm steeping over onto the other side in relation to the ever ongoing debates
between Microsoft and Apple products. The first thing that appealed to me when I
held the iPod Touch for the first time is the thinness, weight and pocketability.
When unpacking the iPod Touch it felt like I was unpacking a very expensive
Swiss watch and must say that it looks and feels like a very refine piece of
engineering work. Plugging in the USB adapter cable for charging and synch feels
a little delicate. In regards to Apple iTunes, I am pleasantly surprised and
enjoy it more than the windows media player for its simplicity and ease of use but lacks
the psychedelic side show present in windows media player .
Now the iPod touch is a very versatile PMP with strengths and weaknesses. What
can the iPod Touch do?
- Play music
- Play video
- View Photo albums
- Play YouTube videos
- Browse the web
- Play podcasts
The unit takes about 20 seconds to boot up and although can store contacts and
calendar it is not worth the time going into details about PDA features because
this is not a PDA and these extra little apps not worth mentioning. As a music
player, we are looking at about 22 hours of capacity, and up to 5 hours a video
playback and doubt that in my case will ever need more than that. I guess for
music professionals its not enough judging my numerous complaints about the max
16G capacities. The iTunes's memory bar is a nice
feature in my opinion by providing a breakdown of what' is
currently loaded on the POD.
Also there no need to go on about the POD’s music capabilities as it is very well explained on the NET and
one of the main reasons for my purchase. The second reason is for its movie playing capabilities and with
the help of Nero Recode I can easily convert movies into the iPod touch format. I must admit that I’m always
prudent when making purchases like this and always count on the 30 money back guaranteed in case I do not like the product. However being on day
two I believe that it will be a keeper being very pleased with the video quality playback.
The Photo viewer is excellent with its capacity to directly zoom in and pan. It’s also a winner in that department. Now on the negatives, the web browser experience should not be seriously considered on a 3.5” screen. Even with zoom you spend a lot of time panning and would only consider using a few minutes at a time. The web browsing experience is the last reason I would consider the touch.
Another thing that strikes me is that this being a touch screen device I never considered that it would get fingerprinted galore.
I mean it’s a fingerprint magnet. Another annoyance with the touch is with the fact that it does not auto shut off.
In fact the only power saving option is the sleep mode that must be manually activated via the clock timer.
Not sure about the sleep mode yet in terms of power consumption but the time will come soon enough has it is difficult to
know at any time in what state the POD is in because of its screen blanking feature. Not having a replaceable battery means that
down the road the recharge will not last long and require an
expensive battery replacement. I also would prefer a slightly larger screen like the PSP.
Unfortunately there are no playlist features for videos on the Touch meaning all the videos are loaded in sequence and cannot be classified.
The iPod touch is a proprietary and locked down piece of gear meaning that it cannot double has a external USB
device and cannot load any other applications natively. However the hacking community provides a facility called
jailbreaking that effectively unlock the POD’s allowing for expandability. Personally, I do not currently feel the
need to add more to the POD. It would be nice however to have the capacity to add events to the built in calendar
along with alarms ala Palm along with a Password manager. There is one thing that I have learned over time is that
I have yet to see on the market an all in one device containing a PDA, decent camera and act as a personal media player.
The iPhone, the iPod touch phone capable cousin is close but no cigar and recommend the casual consumer to stay away
from monopolistic Cell phone provider locking and exorbitant data plans.
I did have concerns about the proprietary nature of iTunes and iPod since we buy our music
unlocked in CD format where it can be played on any device. Purchasing songs off the internet via iTunes
effectively locks you in that you can only playback from your iPod period. The iTunes still allows the freedom to load unlocked DRM free music and movies via iTunes from a PC otherwise
I would have packed this thing up and sent back to the store. I give the iPod Touch a score of:
Apple, iPod touch, PSP, iPhone
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