16 gig iPod Touch first impressions...

Ok, this product has been almost as talked about as the iPhone but has had less than glowing reviews I believe due to being in the shadow of the iPhone.

First, we need to realize the iPhone was first and therefore has set the bar for the Touch. We also need to realize though that this is a different product and is directed toward a different purpose. The iPhone was aimed toward the high-end Smartphone market and was also an iPod. The Touch is an iPod that also plays videos so their functions should be different. They are both premium products and the Touch shares most of the components that made the iPhone a huge success.

As an MP3 player the Touch is unrivaled (in my opinion) in its simplicity and beauty. The form factor is beautiful to behold but the real beauty happens when you turn it on. Anyone can nearly instantly navigate through the functions and find songs or videos with little effort. This is what the Touch was designed to do, and it does it well!

I have read reviews that the sound quality of this unit is sub-par with the other iPods. I would agree to an extent. It does seem a "little" flat comparatively. This isn't extremely noticeable and you would have to play two players side by side to notice the difference. Honestly with a good set of headphones either one would knock your socks off so I think this is minor at best.

I was one of the first-adopters who purchased one of the few week 37s that were available before the official launch. The video on this first Touch was horrible. It was really noticeable when placed next to a video iPod running the same video. I exchanged it for a week 38 and it was much, much better. The video is very nice now. Unfortunately I cannot say whether or not this was a hardware or software issue as they loaded the replacement Touch with a newer updated version of the firmware. This is all that is available now but hardware or not it appears this has been addressed and wide-screen video on this thing is amazing.

The only downside to this is the storage. I wouldn't even bother with the 8 gig if you plan to watch videos on this. I have filled all but 5 gigs on my 16 gig touch being very careful what I load on it. Much more careful than I am with my 30 gig video. It is adequate but this will need to improve with subsequent releases to keep this player on top.

One last thing. The Wi-Fi is really great as is the Wi-Fi iTunes store. The navigation is as easy as everything else on the Touch. It does seem to "hang" occasionally though when navigating through web pages. Not sure why but I hope subsequent firmware updates solve this.

All in all I'd give this product a 9 out of 10. I think it is an amazing product whose hardware and software is nearly flawless. The only downsides in my opinion are storage capacity and cost. It is a very expensive toy that some might shy away from but I'm glad I didn't.