The Drunk Santa Blog

iPod Touch [16GB] : A Honest Review by a Honest AppleFanboy

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Okay, now before most of guys are wondering why I got the iPod Touch, when the iPhone is going launch officially in September in India on Vodafone and Airtel. Well, the main reason being that I am not a big fan of a post-PC device which is multi-purpose. Heck, I have nothing but ring tones in my Sony Walkman mobile. Weird? I guess so, but I like more focused devices XD

So I bought an iPod Touch on July 6th 2008, as I opened the plastic on the box with John Legend’s photo on it, I hoped that I would just by chance get the limited edition Thriller 25 iPod Touch.  And even though I didn’t get one of those, I was still happy to look at a beautiful 3.5 inch device waiting to be plugged in to the computer. Desperately waiting, well. It was disappointing to see that I couldn’t use the iPod before I connected it to my PC and fired up iTunes. The anti-scratch glass screen looked solid but the back was already smudgy as I took the plastic off.  However that didn’t affect me much, because I had already experienced the lame-backside of an iPod before.

I plugged it in, and no driver was required and as I already had iTunes installed it hardly took me time to register the iPod and name it, than select how I wanted to manage the songs on it. So far so good.  I tried to sync 225 songs with album-art and lyrics through the USB 2.0 cable which came in the box [And by the by, I liked the previous cable better cause it had those 2 side button kinda things where you could eject the iPod quite easily. And there is no Apple logo in the new cable, WTF?!] Anyway it took me more then 25 minutes to just sync 225 songs, which made me angry. I left home with my new iPod to check how the Wi-fi works on it, I reached Croma [It's like the Circuit City of India] and they have free Wi-Fi. I picked up a scratch guard there and went online, and the experience was unexpectedly good, I even updated my Facebook status from my iPod Touch and than just added the Facebook Web App on my Home Screen.

Next day, as I tried to find my iPod in ‘My Computer’ I realized that the Touch couldn’t be used as a disc drive, one of the major bummers for me. Because I have always had the habit of using myiPod as a pen drive.  Maybe that was the reason why the iPod Touch never shows ‘Do Not Disconnect’ And even when it’s syncing songs or something else, it just shows ‘Slide here to cancel sync’. Which means you can play songs while the iPod is connected to your computer, which is a great thing XD

I have nothing to say about the built-in Apps like Mail, Maps, Stock and YouTube, because everyone knows they pwn =P

Now, the core functions of an iPod include:-

1. Playing Music : It does it wonderfully, however the coverflow is still kinda buggy and might take a long time to respond. While the accelerometer is very sensitive to whatever is going on, sometimes it ignores the movement, that is again annoying, but it’s still the first generation device.

2. Playing Videos : The 3.5 inch screen is great to look at, plus the stand included in the box is a good add-on even if it’s just plain plastic, however the accelerometer isn’t useful for video. You can view video one way only. Bummer for those fidgety people like me XD

3. Displaying Photographs : The pinching is fun to do, and is easy too. Even my granddad got used to it, now you can see him looking at a really old picture of me and my dad everyday.  The photographs can be rotated 360 degrees which is a cool thing.

The iPod does whatever it says it does and more, the battery life is great for me, I can watch 2 movies and a Scrubs episode and still the battery doesn’t die. A great thing for a night-owl like me or a person who travels alot.

The bad thing about it is, that it’s still kinda buggy, the keyboard layout gets annoying and frustrating, there are no games available yet on it, which makes the iPod boring. But then again, the AppStore is being launched this Saturday in India, and even though you have to pay roughly 430 Rupees for the update [10$] I think this update will solve many of the problems and get some great new features to both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

The new earphones suck but less then the previous ones. They don’t really fit in my ear, well.

The box contains a pair of earphones, a stand, a USB cable and a dock adapter, a polishing cloth and a manual/warranty.

The iPod Touch weighs around 120gms, which is very light and it uses a flash drive which helps to make a 16GB lighter than an old 6GB iPod Mini.

More technical information about it HERE

A great MP3 player, a bit expensive but worth the 400$[In America] 23600 [In India] for people who love a focused Media Player.

Rating :

Design : 9/10

Features : 8/10

Ease of Use : 10/10

Price : 7/10

Overall : 8.3/10

The prices mentioned above are the prices with warranty and with bill, the American Dollar is taken to be 43 rupees in this case, the iPod Touch 16GB which is reviewed is with firmware 1.1.4 [With Software Updates] Apple has not sponsored this review in any way.

Please Note : I broke the news of the Indian iTunes AppStore being already live on Twitter =)

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