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"great design, terrible video performance" on by lstockett
Pros: Great interface, web browser works great, music playback is fine, cover flow feature is much cooler than you'd think
Cons: Video performance is terrible for dark scenes and for dark images within a scene
Summary: I bought mine today from the Apple store in Raleigh, NC. Basically I agree with the CNET review. It's a great device. Or at least it would be if it worked properly.
The screen is terrible. Dark scenes in videos from iTunes are unwatchable. It almost looks like a photo negative. Dark images within a scene are a problem too (for example. a person with dark hair). Darker images from the web also don't display properly. I'm no expert, but all that points to a problem with the display.
Apparently I'm not alone. A quick search on 'ipod touch dark scene' will bring up several blog entries. Here's an example:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/15/ipod-touch-having-display-issues/
The person I talked to at Apple tech support was not familiar with the issue. She was very polite and efficient though. I walked through the process of reseting, rebooting, and all that stuff. None of it worked of course. I then made an appointment to take it back to the Apple store. We'll see how that goes.
I hope this is just a manufacturing defect that's limited to a few units and not a design problem. I also hope they don't give me a hard time about fixing it.Updated
The day after I posted my review I returned my ipod touch to the Apple store. The employees knew all about the problem with the screen. They quickly and politely exchanged my ipod for a new one. No hassle whatsoever. Video and dark images look just fine on the new one.
So, I'm giving them a 9 for the iPod (it would be a 10 if it were 32G or if I could expand it with SD cards).
For customer service I give them a perfect 10. Other than sending Steve Jobs to my door with a new unit and an apology, I can't imagine how the defect could have been handled better. -
"Almost perfect..." on by donwright
Pros: UI is innovative and the best looking out there, WiFi configures easily, decent battery life
Cons: Price makes it less accessible to general public, screen is a smudge magnet
Summary: I have to admit right now, I am annoyed at all the zune and other 'non-iPod' fanboys. Their ratings have completely messed up the overall score. However, I gave the iPod 16Gb an '8' because I know that even if I give it a '10' to 'compensate' for the shameful fanboy scores, it will be to no avail and I will just have to depend on savvy consumers who are doing a thorough research on what they are going to buy.
To give you a recent and brief history of mp3 player ownerships, I have owned a standard no name brand mp3 player, iPod Mini, 5G iPod 80GB video and the Zune 30GB unit. They all have their places and it was a toss up for me between the 5G iPod 80gb Video and the 1st Gen 30GB Zune (Black). I liked the iPod's ease of use and iTunes feature sets and I really loved the Zune's navigation, durability, out of the box sound quality and it's nice widescreen view. Now to the 16GB iPod Touch...
The Touch comes with a docking tray adapter for you past gen dock users, which is nice. It also comes with the standard iPod earphones (get yourself some better ones) and a little cleaning cloth for all the smudges you will eventually have to wipe away once you start using it. It also comes with a USB cord adapter for charging/syncing.
I don't claim to be a professional audiophile, but I do know this from general research, the human ear can 'basically' only hear the 20-20,000 range sound 'spectrum'. So all of the comments made about the poor quality of sound that the Touch resonates seems to elude me. Do these people who complain about the sound quality have dog-like listening ability? So yeah, the sound quality to me is just fine.
User Interface. This is the bread and butter of the iPod Touch. The interface is so intuitive and well thought out as to give the user a feeling of instant recognition of icons and navigation throughout it's interface. I can say that everytime I have pulled this device out to use one of it's features I would get a compliment on how nice it was. So it definitely has a cool factor. Let's not forget that the Touch has some sort of accelerometer built in to it so it can automatically switch to landscape view when you turn it on its side. This works when you watch videos, pictures and web browser. The cover flow is a nice added 'touch' here as well.
Touch Screen. The touch screen is easily smudge-able. However, it is made of glass which makes it very durable, giving it a very 'solid feel'. Apple did not skimp on the build quality of this device, that is certain.
Video- Video was very nice and just a tad bit bigger than the last gen 30GB Zune. The videos were also very nice and had excellent vibrant color to it. I have owned this device since launch and I can say that I have watched a few different types of videos on it from cnet video podcasts to football videos (GO Broncos!) to episodes of BSG (Battlestar Galactica) and have never experienced any problems at all.
Other notes- Web browsing is very easy and to be honest, was a very different experience than what I have ever experienced before. I've used 'touch screens' before, but the Touch is definitely unique in that it just 'feels' like it was meant to be used with your fingers. This is coming from someone who used touch screens with a stylus and regular plain old touch screens like ATM's. The browser is excellent, however, you will not be able to view flash sites and some other types of videos on some internet sites. The WiFi is fast and easy to set up and will ask you if it ever needs to access a different network for web browsing.
The Calendar is very useful, in fact, it just recently got an software update that allows you to add contacts and dates/events to your contacts/calendar and when you sync your Touch, it will automatically update your computer's contacts/calendar events as well. Very nice. The Clock (which can add multiple time zones/world clock), Calculator were also welcomed little programs that I use quite frequently.
The You Tube function of the Touch is more of a specific function, but it works. For what I use You Tube for, it works just fine.
What I do like about the Touch is that it is still both Windows and Mac compatible as where the Zune (even the new ones) is not. You can only use Windows for Zune unless you use Apple's Bootcamp or other Windows emulation software within the Mac OS. Just something to consider if you have narrowed down your search to these two types of devices.
The Touch has a button on the top left that if you push it once 'quickly' it will put your screen into 'sleep mode'. Which saves on batteries and also prevents any accidental 'touches' to your screen. To turn it completely off, press and hold the same button for a few seconds.
There is no recessed headphone jack like the iPhone, so using any other ear/headphones of your choice is not a problem.
For people who like to keep their 'stuff' private, there is a 'security lock' function that allows you to use a 4 digit password to unlock the device. You can even set the time to 'lock' from 1 minute on up.
The 16 GB storage seems to turn alot of people off, but for me it works just fine. I have been able to put all of my music library (about 2 gigs) and some videos on it no problem. I've even put an entire season of Battlestar Galactica on it and still had plenty of room to spare. I can't even imagine having that much videos and music on it. I always keep my Touch's storage 'clean' by only putting what I want on it and leaving the rest on my laptop. Right now, I have a few video podcasts, Bronco season highlights, one tv show and my entire music library on it right now and it has only taken up just a tad over 3 gigs of space leaving me with 11.5 gigs still available for whatever I want to put on it. Depending on how you use your space on this device is up to you, I personally recommend using your space management skills with this device. But it works for me and what I do with it.
The iPod Touch is a very very nice device and if you have the money and do not want or need an iPhone, I highly recommend this product.
This works just fine for what I want it for since I would rather have an actual cell phone with other features that would compliment this device.
Thanks for reading my review and I hope it helps you in your decision making process when choosing this device or others of this type. -
"iPod Touch is tops for 16 GB MP3 Models" on by RonaldJr18
Pros: Touch Screen, WiFi Store, and all other features of the iPhone without the horrbile phone part!
Cons: Unknown until shipped!
Summary: For everyone without an iphone (really if you have an iPhone and want one of these, you really must have a spending problem) and just wanted an MP3 player, then I would get this. Many people on cnet posting their comments are upset about a couple of things. First, the storage (8 or 16 GM FLASH). FLASH is the simplest way to sum it up (it is superior to hard drives; only con SO FAR is storage space). 16 GB is so far the highest capacity available anywhere for FLASH and it has a few advantages over hard drive models. First, no moving parts which makes it 100% skip free unlike hard drive models which have spinning disks. Second, FLASH has faster loading times (overall speed is greater) and with FLASH, you can devices almost any size you want because since FLASH is so small, you can do many things with it (hence the thiness of the iPod Touch). Also, there are less techincal problems with devices that use FLASH over hard drives (you are more likely to experience problems with hard drives than flash memory). Yes, while 16 GB seems small, to many people it may not. Depending on how deep your music library is or depending on how many videos you play to keep on it, 16 GB may be sufficent for many like me. I have over 200 albums (most full) and I'm not hitting 10 GB yet. That goes to show it holds quite alot! At $399... it may seem like alot, but think about the whole product as a whole, and also remember that FLASH techonolgy is expensive; the price is a bargin. Other neat things is that it has blazing fast Wi-Fi (way faster than DSL which is fast enough lol), new iTunes Wi-Fi Store (very convient), and other stuff. Overall this tops the iPod line as the best and over the next couple of years, this is going to be the standard for iPods. Why a rating of 9 out of 10: no products are perfect and thats because (common sense): everything man made always has its flaws (meaning never 100% perfect).
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"Excellent product, but hear me out for "6" rating, also helpful tip for buying a non defective touch" on by trx1701
Pros: Slick UI, Safari, iCal, Slim form factor, beautiful screen<See review
Cons: Far too many missing features for price
Summary: First let me say this: I love my touch and it is an excellent product. However I had to to buy and return THREE touches before getting one with a good screen. Tip: When buying a touch there is a way to identify if the item has a good or bad screen by looking at the box. Looking at the serial IGNORE the first THREE characters. Following that will be two numbers. These numbers tell you the week the touch was made. For example if it say "44" the touch was made in the 44th week of 2007. Only buy a touch with a 45 or above. I week 45 the touch shipped with updated firmware and you are guaranteed to get a good screen. (There were known screen issues with touches previous to this one.) Ideally buy the one with the highest number possible.
Now, the reason for this relatively low rating. When the iPod first came out its purpose was to provide more features than any other competitor product relative to it's price, and succeeded. It is obvious Apple did not use this philosophy when creating the touch. There are far better products for the price. For 400 dollars the features and storage are ridiculous. There are far better products according to a price:feature ratio. Anchos players have far more functionality, however they are quite frankly ugly and I do not like them. The storage capacity of the touch is honestly pathetic. Yes, yes, I know it's due to the flash memory, and flash memory is superior to hard disk based alternatives. But honestly for a PVP 16 gigs is not enough anyway you cut it. Granted a hard disk option would add to the overall thickness of the touch it would be a fabulous trade off. While I understand Apple's decision to not include bluetooth in the touch so as to not allow it to compete with it's iPhone, but it is a poor decision. If Apple hopes to stay competitive bluetooth is essential. If Apple wishes to distinguish its iPhone from the touch there are far better way to do it. Add 50 dollars to the iPhone price or something, but for damnit give us bluetooth and more storage space. I understand Apple leaving out the email, maps, and various other iPhone apps. Keep in mind, it is an mp3 player, not a phone.
To conclude when you buy a touch you are getting an excellent audio, video, and overall media player. You get seamless integration with itunes. You do not get the ability to carry all your music and videos with you and you don't bluetooth functionality. There are various other more minor features the the touch could have but none are really essential. It would be wise to wait until Apple releases a second gen touch when they will no doubt address most of these issues. However, purchase a touch, and you will no doubt be satisfied. -
"HOW CAN YOU RATE THIS YET - ITS NOT EVEN OUT!" on by firefinder24
Pros: Read below!
Cons: Read below!
Summary: I get so tired of people rating a product when they don't even have one in their hands. This isn't a rate by what you have heard, it is supposed to be a rating for people that have purchased one and have hands on experience with the device giving their opinions. Come on people! And yes, I had to put a number in to submit this, so I gave it a 10 as the specs sound good!
Updated
No more ranting abuot how people rate products before they own one. I've been able to play with the iTouch for about 3 days now. EXCELLENT product, and very similar to the iPhone. The only major dislike is volume control. Its very good, but being used to my nano, and having a physical volume control, there are a few extra steps to adjust the volume of the touch. Not a big dela other than when you are at the gym. The Wifi is awesome, as is the display. I have not had any of the reported "dark" screen issues that are being reported.
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