Full Review - Testing and Conclusion
Testing Once done with music, try scrolling through the video section of your iPod. Scroll through available videos in the same way you scroll through songs: with your finger, top to bottom and back up. Touch to play, touch to pause, etc. Touch a playing video to get a volume control. the "done" button in video mode will take you out of the playing video and back to the video library. Again, to get back to the main screen, click the recessed button on the iPod touch. How's video quality? In a word: excellent. The 3.5" LCD screen renders videos with remarkable clarity. Colors are properly saturated and rich, grayscale images are accurate and there's little to no drag or pixilation on properly encoded videos. Lower quality videos will be easy to spot - artifacting is evident - but the iPod touch does a good job of making even the worst videos look acceptable. How hard is it to set up wireless access on the iPod touch? How about 1 minute or less? Click the Safari web browser button. The iPod touch will instantly scan for available networks. If there's a network available without password encryption (no lock icon), you can touch that network and get online instantly. If you have a locked network to connect with, you'll need to enter a password on the touch-style keyboard. It's really easy. Once any needed password is entered, the iPod will remember the password and instantly connect to the internet - most likely Google.com. Use the same on-screen keyboard to enter website addresses. You can view websites holding the iPod vertically, or see larger text and images by holding the iPod touch horizontally. With the internal accelerometer, the iPod screen will flip horizontal for you as soon as you rotate it 90 degrees. It'll rotate left or right, whichever you prefer. Saving Battery Life Where You May Find Disappointment Conclusion
Browse the web with ease using the built-in WiFi radio
From the main menu, click the YouTube button to connect directly to the YouTube video website. See featured videos, most-viewed videos, etc. You'll need headphones plugged in to listen to all this content.
Click the Settings icon to change screen brightness, EQ settings for your music, options for photo slideshows, video playback, volume limits, etc.
Two extra hints for saving battery life: 1) when listening to music, turn the screen off by pressing the little black button on the very top of the iPod touch. The screen will turn off completely, but your music will continue to play. To turn the screen back on without interrupting your music, tap the black button then slide the green "slide to unlock" button on screen. The iPod touch will return to the album art of the song you're currently listening to. 2) When traveling, you can turn the iPod touch off - really off - by pressing and holding the same black button for about 5 seconds. A red "slide to power off" button will appear on the screen. Slide the button to the right and the iPod will turn off 100%, saving battery life.
To resolve difficulties or confusions with your iPod touch, visit an Apple store or go to apple.com/support to find answers to your questions. In general, the iPod touch is very stable and incredibly easy to use.
With all the positive aspects of the iPod touch, folks are likely to fall in love and forget any downsides. We should at least be unbiased and mention the little pitfalls with the first generation iPod touch. There is no memory card slot to add extra gigs of storage. You can't use the iPod touch as an external flash drive without hacking. The iPod touch cannot wirelessly sync with iTunes. (The 2nd generation Microsoft Zune can do this, which should cause considerable embarrassment to Apple.) A very minor annoyance is the placement of the audio jack on the bottom of the iPod touch. This forces users to invert their iPods when placing them in pockets, on treadmills, in cup holders in cars, etc. Apple should really put the audio jack back on the top of the iPod touch, right where it belongs.
Aside from a couple minor limitations, the 16GB iPod touch is truly amazing. It's one of those products that probably has competitors in frantic states of insomnia, burning right through their R&D budgets trying to keep up. The iPod touch is gorgeous - thinner than most media players, features a whopping 3.5" LCD screen, holds a lot of content and is terribly easy to use. Sound quality is awesome and output covers the full range of normal human hearing, from 20Hz to 20kHz. Movies, TV shows and other video content looks fantastic. The touch screen is exciting to use and the overall product makes a very positive impression.
The iPod touch is one of the hottest items of the year and will be a key element to many holiday shopping lists. If you're considering a new multifunction media player this year - whether for yourself or for a loved one - the iPod touch gets the strongest of recommendations.
Pros:
• Excellent audio quality
• Sexy design
• Visual interface far, far ahead of competition
• Beautiful & crisp 3.5" LCD screen
• Multi-touch touch-screen technology
• Built-in Wi-Fi for web browsing and music purchasing
• Greatly improved battery life
• Calendar and Contacts
• Cover Flow for interactive album art
• Windows and Mac compatible
Cons:
• No expansion slot for additional memory
• No flash drive function
• No wireless syncing with iTunes
RSS Feed
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...