Full Review - More Features
Speaking of battery life, the iPod touch sticks to tradition with its built-in rechargeable battery. Charging to 80% capacity takes about 1.5 hours, and a full charge (from dead) can take upwards of 3 hours. You should be able to get 22 hours of audio playback under ideal conditions, but our tests showed the time to vary between 19 and 21 hours. Granted, we crank the volume way up and we keep the screen lit most of the time. Video playback should last 5 hours and has been confirmed by us during several tests while flying the friendly skies. Using non-Apple headphones can dramatically affect the battery drain. Our Bose Tri-Port headphones typically suck battery power 20% to 30% faster due to the sheer size of the drivers. Of course, the iPod touch plays music - upwards of 3500 songs on the 16GB version. Compatible audio formats are AAC (up to 320kbps), MP3 (also up to 320kbps), variable bit rate MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless and audio-book formats, Audible 2, 3 and 4. It also plays video: movies, TV shows, video podcasts or music videos. It doesn't matter if the video content is standard size (4:3) or widescreen (16:9), the iPod touch will play both. In fact, you can even direct the iPod touch to play video full screen (often cropping the left and right edges to utilize every last pixel of the LCD) or zoom out just slightly to play a true letterbox/widescreen version of the video with no cropped edges. According to Apple, you should be able to get upwards of 20 hours worth of video content on the 16GB iPod touch. Of course, this will vary greatly due to different bit rates of video files, but it's a safe estimate. Video content can be downloaded from the iTunes store or created on your computer. It doesn't matter where the content comes from, so long as it's in a compatible format such as H.264 and MPEG-4 videos in .m4v, .mov and .mp4. If you have video content that you'd like to move to the iPod touch but it's in the wrong format, there are plenty of video conversion applications available for free or for a fee online. On the Mac side, one great application is called "VisualHub". The Elgato turbo.264 video processor will also convert video content to iPod touch compatible size and format. The iPod touch also has built-in 802.11b/g wireless. This allows you to connect to any secure or unsecure wireless network (so long as it's using the ubiquitous 802.11b or g protocol) to access websites, YouTube and the iTunes store. When viewing websites online, the software in the iPod touch converts full-sized websites for the 3.5" LCD screen. And even though images and text are being scaled down, they look awesome and are almost always fully functional. You can even save favorite websites to your bookmarks folder o the iPod touch. Like earlier iPods, the touch can display full-color photos. What's new, however is the convergence of the accelerometer and the Multi-touch screen to allow for on-the-fly rotation of images from portrait to landscape mode (vertical to horizontal), flipping through photos with the swiping motion of your finger, and the amazing ability to zoom into your images using two fingers in an inward pinch motion. Zoom back out by using an outward un-pinch movement. Our video clip shows this 'pinch' feature. Apple estimates that 20,000 photos can be stored on the 16GB flash drive. The iPod touch has a new feature that iPod users had been demanding for years. It's the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, where users can log in (once connected to any Wi-Fi network), preview songs and make direct purchases that will immediately download to the iPod touch. Songs purchased through the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store will then sync with your computer the next time the iPod touch is connected by the sync cable. Related to the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store is the Starbucks Music feature. If you're in a Starbucks coffee shop and hear a cool song playing over their sound system, whip out your iPod touch, press the "iTunes" button and the Starbucks music page will open up. You can then select the song you want to buy (songs currently playing in the store will be at the top of the list and will be marked with a text tag that says "Now Playing") and press the song to buy it. This Starbucks music feature is a sort of portal or "front" for the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. Granted, it's only currently available in a few select cities, but will gain ground in 2008. Audio quality is an iPod standard. The iPod touch sounds as good as or better than earlier iPods. Frequency response is 20Hz to 20kHz, which covers nearly the entire range of human hearing - from the lowest booming bass to the sharpest highs. The Apple headphones also handle 20Hz to 20kHz, so final output is potentially amazing. Weak links in this setup include low bit rate audio encoding and earbuds that don't fit perfectly in one's ears. 
The main menu on the iPod Touch
In the Box
When you buy the 16GB iPod touch, you'll also get Apple's latest earbud headphones, a slimmer syncing/charging cable, a touch-sized dock adapter for iPod speaker systems, a stand, a polishing cloth and a simplified user manual.
The bottom of the touch allows it to work with iPod speaker systems
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by Dan on September 9, 2008:
“Great product, but the battery lasts 2-4 hrs on Wi-Fi browsing with 25% brightness, with 4.5 hrs of video (wifi off). It decreases to half in a year. ” More...