There are many people weighing in on the iPod Touch with their own reviews so I figured I’d throw my own piece of wood onto the fire. How amazing is it that we now have opinions from thousands of people rather than just a few reviews by mainstream outlets? I think its great. And that’s why I’ll take a few moments to let you know what I think.

I’ve never owned an iPod before. In fact I’ve held a mild disdain for the device because of the lock in with iTunes for managing music on the device. Unfortunately I still haven’t found a piece of software that manages my desktop based media as well as iTunes. Although I must say that the Songbird media manager is gaining ground.

I finally decided to buy this iPod because of the strong feature list. Yes it handles audio and video. I expect that from any portable media device these days. But it also does well with photos. And it can access the internet via WiFi. I’ve always wanted those features in a device and the iPod Touch promised them. There is the more open Nokia N800 which I had considered. Form factor was important though and the N800 looked a little too big to me.

Aesthetics

The device has a really nice form factor. I have small hands and it fits well in my hand. The iPod is a little thinner than I expected and also a little heavier. Other people who have held it are quite surprised at how sturdy it feels. The back of the unit is very shiny. So much so that you can use it as a mirror. The downside of this shininess is that it gets light scuffs and scratches very easily. The front side is clean and smooth. Once on the screen is bright and looks great. Apple has really done a good job on designing a clean interface.

Features

Most people know what this thing can do vis-a-vis media. I didn’t even consider the calendar or contact features that are included. I haven’t done much with them yet, especially since I’m not using Outlook as my mail and calendar client these days. I really would love it if this device could sync calendar and contacts with Mozilla Thunderbird. Its not a dealbreaker though since I manage my contacts and calendar on my Samsung Blackjack when I’m on the go. I like the photo syncing mostly because the photos actually look good enough to show people on this device. And flipping through them with the touch screen is a really easy way to look at them. If there is one thing that I would to have added to the iPod Touch it would be a dedicated Google Maps application

Function

In general I think that the iPod Touch works really well. Its my first iPod so I can only compare it to the older iRiver audio player that I owned. The touch screen has worked well so far. Sometimes I have to touch something a second time to get it to activate, but that’s pretty rare. The only button on the device is an on/off button. So there’s a lot of sliding that takes place to adjust volume or skip around in media. People who want to manipulate the iPod Touch without looking will be sorely disappointed.

I’m a big podcast listener/watcher and I have noticed something funny with the may the device handles video podcasts. Video podcasts are stored in the podcast section but also in the video section. If you play the video podcasts from the dedicated podcast area you only get audio. You have to click on the link to the video gallery to get to the video podcasts to watch them. In general I would like to see a dedicated podcast button rather than having to find them in a sub-menu of ‘music’ or ‘video’.

The internet features have been working well for me so far. You can connect to any WiFi hot spot and the Safari browser looks nice. The screen is too small to comfortably view most web pages, but you can zoom in easily by grasping the screen with your fingertips and spreading them apart. This isn’t the optimal way to browse the web but it works well for reading feeds and news. One continual bummer is the fact that the browser on the iPod Touch doesn’t support Adobe Flash. So you can’t view any objects coded in Flash. I do love being able to sit on my porch and just flip through news stories courtesy of my home office WiFi hotspot.

I found some interesting things with media that is linked from a web page. If you click on a link to an audio file then that file will start streaming to the device. If you click on a direct link to a video you get an error saying that the page is too large to view in Safari. But the iPod Touch will stream iPod compatible videos provided that they are embedded in a web page. Few people embed QuickTime into web pages these days so video junkies will have to rely on the built in YouTube functionality.

I had heard that you only got access to a small portion of YouTube via the iPod/iPhone interface. I did a little test and uploaded a video to my YouTube account yesterday. Then I was able to search for and play it with my iPod today. So it looks like Google has done a good job catching up. You can also bookmark YouTube videos on the iPod which is a feature I like and did not expect.

The only real bummer I’ve found is the fact that you have to pay an extra $29 (which I did) for the benefit of a charger that plugs into the wall. Otherwise you can only charged when hooked up to a computer with the USB sync cable. The folks at Apple are masters in the art of the up sell.

Value For The Money

I’ve seen plenty of people squawking about the fact that you pay $399 and only get 16GB of storage on the iPod Touch. I would love more storage on this thing. But at the same time I think the WiFi and other applications here that you can’t find on a regular iPod balance it out. The only shortcoming for the dollar you spend is the lack of a basic wall charger. I suspect that in the beginning of 2008 we will start seeing new models with more storage at the same price of less. As the people who bought an iPhone over the summer now know, there is a bit of a price for being an early adopter.

Bottom Line

I’m very happy with the iPod Touch. If you have tons of media you want to take with you then you are better off with a classic iPod with a huge hard drive. If you’ve recently bought another mobile media player you are happy with I would recommend waiting to buy an iPod Touch til the prices come down and the storage gets bigger. If you are ready for your next upgrade and want a true multimedia device to satiate your information as well as entertainment needs, then this is definitely the way to go.