Apple iPod Touch 32GB Review

Overall Rating

- Flash Memory, much more stable and faster than HDD.
- Beautiful User Interface.
- Very quick to charge.
- Fantastic visual playback.
- Apple Application store is brilliant.

- iTunes ONLY in terms of file management.
- Fingerprint magnet, as the screen can only really be used via your fingers!
- Chrome back looks beautiful BUT even if you keep it levitating in the air forever it will STILL get scratched.

I first got my iPod Touch 8GB on a spending splurge through my catalogue 'I was bored of my iPod Nano, and I am a gadget freak so I simply HAD to have this. It was and still is a little pricey, but with Apple you get a very slick design which always looks nice, all hail Steve Jobs our benevolent dictator!

The UI is simply marvellous, it makes selecting which album to play a joy, even now people glance over and see what that strange pad you are touching is. The sound quality is lovely with many different equalizer settings to choose from; unfortunately you cannot customise an equaliser setting but oh well! Every aspect of the UI screams uniqueness and quality, the cover flow album selector is brilliant, a simple rotation of the iPod, and the extremely accurate build in accelerometer kicks in and up pops your albums!

The App store is brilliant also, there are loads of free applications to download and many can really showcase the touch ' s abilities. The Maps function is really cool although pretty pointless on the Touch as you can only really access it if you are within range of a WiFi spot. The same can be said for the Safari Browser and the email receiver. But they are neat to have anyway.

At the other end of the scale it is a shame that they have removed the ability to use the iPod ' s memory as a ' Memory Stick '. Also it is annoying that Apple charged people to update the software to 2.0 considering they already forked out 160 minimum for the unit 'one would expect software updates to be free. The standard iPod headphones are not very good, they seem to do a great job with treble but the bass is very poor, I suggest getting a good pair of headphones to go with it; otherwise you have an expensive piece of kit with a poor pair of headphones.

Also the fact that it HAS to be synced to iTunes and activated via iTunes pretty much forces the user to own a PC or MAC, the same can be said by not including a charger with it meaning you either have to buy one or charge it from the USB port, and it also forces the user to have an internet connection as they do not include iTunes. All of these things people have simply gotten used too but they still nig at me. I do not like the inclusion of a speaker on the new unit either, basically because here in the UK we have many kids that on buses and trains will persist on playing music loudly, and its usually not very good music either. If it wasn ' t for that, id probably be happy with the inclusion.

All in all thought, I do not regret buying it, I love it and will continue to love it.