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Apple iPod Touch
Price: £199 inc VAT for 8GB, £269 for 16GB

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Ben Camm-Jones

This review updated: 17/11/2007
Featured in magazine:
Issue 173
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Apple
Tel: 0800 039 1010
Web Address: www.apple.com/uk


Best Price:
The concept of using the screen to control a device is nothing new – PDAs have had styluses for years – but it's only now that touchscreens are living up to the true sense of their name, with easy-to-lose pointing sticks being ditched in favour of your fingers. The iPod Touch has only two buttons, leaving the rest up to the screen and your digits. And even if you're blessed with less-than-dainty hands, it still makes other portable media players feel awkward to operate by comparison.

Features:
The iPod Touch has been referred to as 'an iPhone without a phone', but despite their similar appearance, the two devices have some key differences. Though the iPod Touch can connect to the web via Wi-Fi, it hasn't got the built-in email and mapping applications of the iPhone, though you could still check your webmail or use online maps, of course. That said, it has more to offer than your average portable media player: the Wi-Fi functionality lets you connect to the iTunes store to download content directly, and there's a purpose-built YouTube application too. The Touch is built around flash memory rather than a hard disk, so it's low on power consumption, but it is expensive, with a smaller capacity than the more accommodating iPod Classic. If you have a big music collection or a lot of video content, this could be a drawback.

Performance:
However, the Touch reaps the rewards of flash memory with an excellent battery life – we had it running for something approaching the claimed 22 hours of continuous music playback. But the touchscreen is the real star of the show: as well as being an input device, it does a masterful job of displaying video with its widescreen aspect ratio.

There are one or two problems when surfing the web though. Using the Safari browser on the iPod Touch is easily the best internet experience you'll have on a device this small but when you zoom in and out on some web pages, the odd item doesn't resize properly. This means that captions can be too small and links overlay one another, making them impossible to use.

Ease of use:
The touchscreen is a pleasure to use – even when the on-screen keyboard is being operated, you'll find yourself making very few errors, and correcting what you've typed is easy. It is prone to fingerprints but is easily wiped clean, and you'll end up noticing them more on the silver casing of the back than on the screen. If you don't fancy the Safari browser, however, it's tough luck. Only Apple-approved applications can be installed, which also means you can't watch video content that's only supported by Windows Media Player or RealPlayer – such as videos on the BBC News website.

Value for money:
Relative to what you'll have to shell out to buy and maintain an iPhone, it looks a good buy – we expect many people will keep their mobile and get one of these instead. In terms of other portable media players, though, it has a relatively high pounds-per-gigabyte ratio. But to a very large extent this is offset by its extra features, especially if you're looking for portable internet access.

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