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Other Topics => Off Topic Discussion => Topic started by: Zapranoth on October 02, 2007, 10:34:57 PM



Title: iPod touch
Post by: Zapranoth on October 02, 2007, 10:34:57 PM
Just got one for my wife today.

All I can say is... damn.  Another piece of Apple wizardry.


Title: Re: iPod touch
Post by: Mr_Vindictive on October 03, 2007, 03:02:56 PM
Just got one for my wife today.

All I can say is... damn.  Another piece of Apple wizardry.

And all I can say is:  I envy you Zap.

In all honesty, I was one who never understood the obsession with Apple's various IPods.  I ended up buying a fifth generation IPod with video and I have to say that it is far superior to any other MP3 player that I've owned.  I bought my first one in '98 back when they were unheard of, and have been through various models since then.  Apple just knows how to make a piece of hardware intuitive, fun, and expensive.

That said, I'd really like to have a Touch.  I really liked the IPhone but don't have the need of a cell phone.  The touch is interesting to me in that it has all the functionality of the IPhone without the cell phone portion, and it's much sleeker and thinner.  I just wish they had a larger storage capacity....

Care to post some photos or a short review?


Title: Re: iPod touch
Post by: Zapranoth on October 03, 2007, 05:18:42 PM
Can come up with pictures if you like.  A short review... okay.

Like you, Ska, I would enjoy an iPhone, but I have no need to drop a thousand bucks on a CELL PHONE.  (cost + a year's contract) The crappy little nokia I have does what I need, and I hate ringing cell phones (mine is for emergencies and convenience, and is shut off most of the time.)

The ipod touch?

It's _thin_.   There's no moving parts since it's all flash RAM, and 16 GB of space is pretty good for my wife's purposes.   

The interface is just wizardry.   The screen is glossy and very high-rez, and the gesture interface is like nothing I have ever tried.  You've probably seen the videos -- you can just flick your finger at the screen to move things around, as though you were pushing paper around on a desk.  Tap to zoom in, select;  "pinch" your fingers together or apart to zoom.   The text re-sizes itself and clarifies as you do it...     

The screen is bright and clear.  Even very colorful and high-rez movies like Finding Nemo look gorgeous on it.    The battery life is relatively long.  We played with it for probably six  hours or so, all told, and didn't use even half the battery life, and I don't think we started with a full charge. 

It's smart.  The way it rotates the image to landscape view as you turn it is an example of Apple's particular kind of perspicacity.  It'll landscape and rotate the view all the way around, actually -- but if you hold the ipod flat, it won't turn the image.    So if you aren't picturing what it does -- you can hold the Touch upright, so that the rectangle shape of it is long axis up/down, to read web pages or whatever, and if you turn the device 90 degrees -- so that the rectangle  of its screen is "lying on its size" -- it smoothly pivots the screen image to a landscape view. 

On my 5g iPod, if I load up, say, a tennis match between Roger Federer and Richard Gasquet, I can hardly see the ball.  On this ipod, the resolution is much greater... you get a surprising amount of detail, in very bright colors.

The internet access (by wifi -- I just have it set to use my airport station in the house) is pretty reasonable, in terms of interface, but it's way stunted by the fact that the version of Safari on it can't use flash, as yet.  Bleh.  :(   But we didn't buy it for internet browsing.   But in the SeaTac airport, for example, could use it to while away some time, or check email through a web interface, etc.

it's actually not that hard to type on the on-screen display, which surprised me.  I'm someone who never "texts" (never have) so wasn't sure what to expect there, but I was favorably surprised.  I could actually text on the thing easily if I wanted to.

It's neat to have contact lists and a calendar program on the device, and of course it syncs those with your Mac's contacts and calendar setting.

So, to summarize our reactions very briefly -- it's got that incredible gadget factor that only companies like Apple can come up with.  It's really, really thin and relatively compact, and the screen is gorgeous, and the interface is way ahead of anything else.   I've been an ipod fan for a long time -- I have a 30 GB that I jog with, 5th generation, and it's the best exercise companion I have.  =)   But the touch has that off-the-charts coolness factor that you only see in a few products a year.

Will get some pictures and put them up.  Let me know if you have any questions.




Title: Re: iPod touch
Post by: Mr_Vindictive on October 03, 2007, 06:32:29 PM
Thanks for the review Zap!  One can read all of the technology blogs in the world but nothing compares to a review from an average person. 

My 5Gen IPod is also a 30GB and as I said, I'm very very pleased with it.  Sometimes when I'm required to work nights or weekends, when I have the office to myself, I use the IPod as a portable video device.  The resolution isn't the best in the world but the video is consistently crisp and bright on the small screen. 

I do like that Apple went with flash memory with the new devices as it is a bit quicker than a spinning drive, no skipping, and the battery life is greatly increased.  My main interest in the touch is in it's wifi and video capabilities and not so much it's music functionality.  At the moment I use a laptop or my Nintendo DS running the Opera browser to connect to the internet at hotspots.  It'd be nice to have the Touch for that as from what I've seen, it's not too slow when loading pages and such.

I'll probably wait for a price drop, or a larger capacity model before I buy one.  If I do end up buying one, it'll be to replace my current IPod and 30GB isn't enough space for me, so 16GB is certainly out of the question.  I like to have all of my albums on it, along with at least one season of a TV show.  At the moment, I have the first season of Eureka and the first two seasons of Weeds on my IPod and its filled to the brim, counting my music.

Once again, thanks for the review.  I have an unhealthy obsession with electronics and gadgets that usually leads my wife to saying she will divorce me if I buy anything else.  That happens on a weekly basis. :smile:


Title: Re: iPod touch
Post by: Zapranoth on October 03, 2007, 09:32:21 PM
Heh.  =)  I have the same kind of bug.  I love gadgets of a certain flavor. 

I love my 30 GB pod, too -- I jog with mine, and a Touch wouldn't be as good for that, unless you were going to just start a playlist at the beginning of the run, then lock the screen for the rest of the jog.    On the 30 GB you can feel the click wheel and use it without looking; not so with a Touch.