iPod Touch Review
The iPod Touch has revolutionized the way we think about mp3 players. It is an mp3 player which can view videos on it's beautiful 3.5 inch display, view pictures, listen to music with album art and all those fancy setting which allows you to group your music by artist, album, and genre.
The iPod Touch comes with a little plastic stand which i don't really like. So far i've knocked over the iPod twice because there's barely anything holding the iPod to the stand. Not only that but getting the stand out of the plastic it came in was a pain in the rear as well. It took me about 10 minutes to finally remove all of the plastic and just the other day i realised there was still a bit more. But hey, this is a review of the iPod not the flimsy stand it comes with.
The iPod also comes with a very soft clothe which you can use to clean both the screen and the rear of the iPod making it shine like the sun. It also comes with the usb cable to hook it up to your computer and of course the apple earphones. The earphones don't fit that well in my ears, neither did the earphones from my old video iPod, but they'll have to do seeing as i just blew quite a bit of $$ on a new laptop and the iPod.
When you first take your iPod out of the ridiculously small package and hold it in your hand, you say to yourself, damn, this thing is freaking thin. As i took off the plastic i realised just how beautiful the thing was. Shiny, purdy, just amazing in general. I turned it on and the load up took about 2 minutes. When it booted up i dragged my finger across the screen to unlock it and it really worked! It's a touch screen iPod for gods sake!
The next day i got home and connected it to my computer and started syncing it. The music quality was as i expected; beautiful. I checked out the pics i had synced and the quality was beautiful. You can flip sideways from picture to picture and enlarge them by pinching the pictures and making your fingers spread across the screen. I've only synced one video because i had just only found a good conversion program, for future iPod owners check out iSquint. It's free and works fast.
Next i tried out the internet. I was thinking that the internet couldn't be fast because of my past experiance with my psp. But when i opened up safari i was far from it. The internet was literally as fast as a regular browser. I was amazed. It's basically the same as the safari browser i'm writting on right now. When i went to log onto my msn on ebuddy it didn't even register as a mobile browser. One thing that made me mad about safari is the double click to zoom. It only works if you're clicking on a picture or a link, but from playing around with it for a while i realised you can enlarge the page the same way you would a picture; just pinch and spread. You can also turn the iPod sideways and the internet browser will turn sideway with it giving you a wider view of the page you're looking at.
The keyboard on the iPod touch is very cool as well. It takes a while getting used to typing on the thing because the keys are so close together but once you get used to it you end up doing a good job and you can give yourself a good pat on your back when your typing on it as fast as your keyboard.
In the settings for the iPod, you can choose the contrast of the iPod, the default search engine for safari ( either google or yahoo ), you can clear your history in safari as well. You can also set up some picture viewing settings, and a few music settings as well. There is also some video settings you can play around with.
When you go into your music, you can flip all the way down your list of either alblums, artists, songs or your playlists. If you're too lazy to do this and have assigned album art to your music collection turn your iPod sideways either way and cover flow will appear letting you flick your finger across the screen for your music choosing pleasures.
Another thing about the iPod that made me mad was that video can only be viewed sideways and only on one side as well. The same goes with the youtube program which is pretty cool but only let's you watch it one way. You can though, if you want, adjust the video to make it full screen. But the quality was non the less nice but it all depends on the video and how it was converted.
There is also a handy calculater that i have not yet had the chance to use. It works pretty well, and has a nice look. I invision myself using once in a while, mabye to do some simple calculations as it does not have advanced calculater functions.
You also have a clock. The clock allows you to add different places with different times from all around the world. It also has a timer and a stopwatch and an alarm. You've also got a calender and contact app which syncs to your calender and your contacts on your computer which can be very handy for remembering test dates and your girlfriends number when you're on the run and you've forgotten your cell phone harhar
For all you people wondering if there's any games on this neat little device, unfortunatly there is not right now. Hopefully stevezy will introduce some fun games like brick and solitaire which will utilize the touch screen in which i adore so much.
Thanks for reading my review. Soon i will have some pictures up which will give you a closer look at everything. If you have any questions or concerns we are in a forum so just post below and i'll respond.
The iPod Touch comes with a little plastic stand which i don't really like. So far i've knocked over the iPod twice because there's barely anything holding the iPod to the stand. Not only that but getting the stand out of the plastic it came in was a pain in the rear as well. It took me about 10 minutes to finally remove all of the plastic and just the other day i realised there was still a bit more. But hey, this is a review of the iPod not the flimsy stand it comes with.
The iPod also comes with a very soft clothe which you can use to clean both the screen and the rear of the iPod making it shine like the sun. It also comes with the usb cable to hook it up to your computer and of course the apple earphones. The earphones don't fit that well in my ears, neither did the earphones from my old video iPod, but they'll have to do seeing as i just blew quite a bit of $$ on a new laptop and the iPod.
When you first take your iPod out of the ridiculously small package and hold it in your hand, you say to yourself, damn, this thing is freaking thin. As i took off the plastic i realised just how beautiful the thing was. Shiny, purdy, just amazing in general. I turned it on and the load up took about 2 minutes. When it booted up i dragged my finger across the screen to unlock it and it really worked! It's a touch screen iPod for gods sake!
The next day i got home and connected it to my computer and started syncing it. The music quality was as i expected; beautiful. I checked out the pics i had synced and the quality was beautiful. You can flip sideways from picture to picture and enlarge them by pinching the pictures and making your fingers spread across the screen. I've only synced one video because i had just only found a good conversion program, for future iPod owners check out iSquint. It's free and works fast.
Next i tried out the internet. I was thinking that the internet couldn't be fast because of my past experiance with my psp. But when i opened up safari i was far from it. The internet was literally as fast as a regular browser. I was amazed. It's basically the same as the safari browser i'm writting on right now. When i went to log onto my msn on ebuddy it didn't even register as a mobile browser. One thing that made me mad about safari is the double click to zoom. It only works if you're clicking on a picture or a link, but from playing around with it for a while i realised you can enlarge the page the same way you would a picture; just pinch and spread. You can also turn the iPod sideways and the internet browser will turn sideway with it giving you a wider view of the page you're looking at.
The keyboard on the iPod touch is very cool as well. It takes a while getting used to typing on the thing because the keys are so close together but once you get used to it you end up doing a good job and you can give yourself a good pat on your back when your typing on it as fast as your keyboard.
In the settings for the iPod, you can choose the contrast of the iPod, the default search engine for safari ( either google or yahoo ), you can clear your history in safari as well. You can also set up some picture viewing settings, and a few music settings as well. There is also some video settings you can play around with.
When you go into your music, you can flip all the way down your list of either alblums, artists, songs or your playlists. If you're too lazy to do this and have assigned album art to your music collection turn your iPod sideways either way and cover flow will appear letting you flick your finger across the screen for your music choosing pleasures.
Another thing about the iPod that made me mad was that video can only be viewed sideways and only on one side as well. The same goes with the youtube program which is pretty cool but only let's you watch it one way. You can though, if you want, adjust the video to make it full screen. But the quality was non the less nice but it all depends on the video and how it was converted.
There is also a handy calculater that i have not yet had the chance to use. It works pretty well, and has a nice look. I invision myself using once in a while, mabye to do some simple calculations as it does not have advanced calculater functions.
You also have a clock. The clock allows you to add different places with different times from all around the world. It also has a timer and a stopwatch and an alarm. You've also got a calender and contact app which syncs to your calender and your contacts on your computer which can be very handy for remembering test dates and your girlfriends number when you're on the run and you've forgotten your cell phone harhar
For all you people wondering if there's any games on this neat little device, unfortunatly there is not right now. Hopefully stevezy will introduce some fun games like brick and solitaire which will utilize the touch screen in which i adore so much.
Thanks for reading my review. Soon i will have some pictures up which will give you a closer look at everything. If you have any questions or concerns we are in a forum so just post below and i'll respond.
Comments
1. Can you send and receive e-mail just like your on a regular computer? How about posting on forums?
2. Can you listen to music while your surfing the web or looking at pictures?
3. Is their msn messenger (or any instant messeging) available on the iPod touch? (I'm guessing no since it's a whole other application)
Thanks again!
I have a question: how have you managed to send a transmission from your mysterious mirror world? I would have thought the frequencies would be incompatible.
When you pass through the portal, this is what happens to you:
Hey Rich thanks for posting that review. I have a couple questions for ya if you don't mind.
1. Can you send and receive e-mail just like your on a regular computer? How about posting on forums?
2. Can you listen to music while your surfing the web or looking at pictures?
3. Is their msn messenger (or any instant messeging) available on the iPod touch? (I'm guessing no since it's a whole other application)
Thanks again!
Okay, you can send email like on a regular computer. But remember it can't use flash so a few sites may not work i'm not sure. Hotmail works but i use the old non flash version of hotmail so i'm not sure if hotmail live will work, nor i know if gmail will work.
Yes!, you can listen to music while looking at pictures and surfing the web. I was very pleased with this for you cannot do that on the psp. Another good thing is that if you're surfing the web and you decide to view a video it automatically stops the song playing.
There is currently no messenging on the iPod Touch. But if you want to you could use a mobile chat. ebuddy is a very good mobile instant messenging site which works very well.
Haha, the reason the pictures are reversed is because i took them with my "iSight" camera on my laptop. I never even realised they were backwards till you pointed it out. Whatever, they get my point through to the viewers
Huh. And I never realized that the iSight app/hardware reversed the image. I'm guessing that it's because we are used to seeing ourselves in a mirror, and "right way around" would look weird, compared to our experience.
What do you guys Do all day. Im ein class right now so when do you guys have the time?
edit: the above message was written on my iPod touch.
I'm gonna nab one. The 8gig version. I figure why spend the extra money on 6 gigs...when i will probably update down the road when larger flash drives are available. So for now I still have most of my music on my older 60gig hard drive ipod.
I was going to get an iphone, but I will be traveling around the world alot this year...and don't need a phone. Hopefully in the future Apple will release an iphone that has a pay as you go plan for people who travel alot.
Anyway...the ipod touch is awesome. I mainly will use it for the wifi. Its like having a laptop in your pocket!@
BUT...there are a couple of things I wish the ipod touch had. First is a camera. I just think that would be so cool if you could shoot your own youtube videos and post them. Maybe someday.
Next....FLASH. I have NO idea why Flash is not on the iphone or ipod touch. It doesn't make sense as so much of the internet uses Flash. But I hear Steve Jobs say flash may be available in future software updates. Lets hope.
Lastly...I am worried about battery life on the touch. The iphone although thin, is ALOT thicker than the touch. I wonder if battery life on the touch is decent?
The reviewer didn't mention that. Anyone out there with feedback on the touches battery life?
thanks
There are no buttons anymore for skipping a song, or playing/pausing or turning the volume up or done, so how am I supposed to do these things without taking it out of wherever I put it and look specifically for it.
That is inconvenient and timeconsuming. I hope that Apple will create the next version of touch with these four buttons at the end of the touch-screen, so that you can have the best of both worlds.
Nightcrawler
I've had the opportunity to touch (pun intended) the ipod touch in a shop. Really a beauty to look and touch, coverflow works great, it all feels intuitively enough... but there is one thing I don't like about it:
There are no buttons anymore for skipping a song, or playing/pausing or turning the volume up or done, so how am I supposed to do these things without taking it out of wherever I put it and look specifically for it.
That is inconvenient and timeconsuming. I hope that Apple will create the next version of touch with these four buttons at the end of the touch-screen, so that you can have the best of both worlds.
Nightcrawler
yes, that is one disadvantage to the touch. mabye the next version will have physical buttons. i won't be getting it though, not enough money hahaha.