Mes Secrets Inconnus

Too many gadgets for choosing. Too many reviews. So i thought i would give a review myself about my most recent possession - Apple IPOD touch - 8GB....


I had already owned an IPOD shuffle and i must say i was way impressed with it. So this new gadget only had a backing of a company that had impressed me with performance


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.he 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.

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 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.

Value For The Money
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

Note: Its also prone to jailbreaking and i did that within the 1st week of possession :-)