By eliminating the phone portion of the unit the Touch ended up being a few millimeters shorter and a bit thinner than its related iPhone. In addition, it was about a half-ounce lighter, weighing in at only 4.2 ounces. Naturally, since it is not a phone you are deprives of making calls, send-e-mail or the ability to surf the Web on the cell phone network. To many people this is not a drastic lose as the phone performance associated with the iphone was mediocre anyway as well as being married to AT&T with their not so great network performance.
At around $300 the Touch comes with 8-gigabyte of storage which would effectively hold approximately 2,000 songs or if you so desire you could part with $400 and get the 16 GB version. This is actually the largest capacity currently available for any flash player that is on the market today.
Apple claims that the iPod Touch has a battery life of up to 22 hours for the audio playback and as much as 5 hours for the video.
For positives the iPod Touch is the very first iPod which is able to download your music and videos wirelessly. Although you may now find that other players may offer wireless downloading it is the Touch which has provided a better means of implementation. The Touch will allow its users to actually purchase the songs as opposed to the other units which merely permit you to rent the music and charges you a monthly fee. With the Touch you are permitted to share your downloaded music by connecting the unit to your computer or another iPods device. An interesting feature is that in the event that you lose your Wi-Fi connection during a planned download you will be permitted to continue the download via your computer when you arrive at your home.
Whenever you have the Touch on and are within range of your local Starbucks Wi-Fi hotspot you will see a Starbucks button on the Touch’s main screen menu. By pushing this button you can tap into the iTunes store where you would be allowed to purchase the particular song that may be playing in the café. Access for this feature is free for those who are downloading.
They failed to recess the headphone jack on the unit which would allow you the ability to use any of the aftermarket headphones that you may wish to use without any special adapters. A significant change here is that on the iphone the jack is located at the top while with the touch it is on the bottom of the device.
On the negative side of the ledger you will find that some of the common iPhone features were completely dropped. The unit has naturally lost its 2 megapixel camera, the icons for e-mail as well as those for texting, Google maps is no longer available nor the weather and stock market data. You are able to access a few of these features by way of the Safari Web browser although it will now involve a few extra steps.
Other items lacking include the volume control that was side mounted which allowed you to adjust the volume without removing it from your pocket. On the Touch you would reach the iPod controls by double pressing the home button. The Touch does not have the usual iPhone’s speaker either which was very useful when watching videos without the headphones. It also lacks the button on the headset cord which would permit you to pause your music when you desired to.
The multi-touch display on the touch is noticeably less bright than what was found on the iPhone even though the readability during periods of bright light is still excellent. The Touch’s 16 GB storage may be larger then previous Apple devices but in comparison with other similar flash players it is rather small.
Based upon what we have gathered here perhaps one would seriously consider purchasing a Touch in the event that they want to surf the net or watch a few videos, however for a unit with added storage capacity you may wish to check out alternate machines.
