20 October 2010

iPod Touch Review

Over the past few months I've acquired some fruity gadgets to bring a change in my life. I'm sort of a tech geek to some extent and I've always wanted a gadget or two to further improve and "enlighten" my life hah.

I'm a rather late player into the scene with gadgets updating like every few months. So this could be a rather bland review from the point of view of a beginner.

First I had this iPod Touch 3rd generation as a present from my sis when she went to US last year (thanks sis!). Interestingly this isn't my first iPod encounter, as few years back I had bad luck trying to sync an iPod Nano to my aging Pentium 4 desktop.

During my summer break back in Malaysia I've finally collect it after it's been waiting for me close to a year! Luckily it wasn't misplaced when we're moving house too lol.
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This iPod Touch is meant to be a replacement for my Walkman MP3 player which I've filled up up to the last few MBs. I'm such a monster filling in my media player with tons of songs lol.

Unlike the Walkman, I took more effort filtering the songs to put into the iPod as throwing in entire albums is one of the reasons the 16GB Walkman was filled in so fast. Although this iPod is a 32GB model but I still have to allocate the spaces for other things as well.

After carefully selecting, audio still takes up almost 10GB space hmm....
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Current home screen.
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Right.... so here's the thumbs up and thumbs down factors of iPod Touch....

Thumbs-up:

(I) Internet connectivity

This incredible function helped me a lot back then in Malaysia where Internet connection isn't ready yet. It's very useful to hook up free WIFI abundantly available in KL's shopping malls and make quick check on mails, update Twitter and Facebook.

This iPod Touch btw, is actually my 3rd gadget that's able to connect to the Internet (2nd being my Nokia 5310, but limited to GPRS only). It also actually help to reduce time facing the computer too, thus reduce the reliance on computer to achieve tasks.

(II) Versatile Applications

a) Games
Let's face it, one of the main reason to get an iPod Touch are the games! Seriously....

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These games had kept my occupied for some time back home when I'm bored. It's highly addictive and it's still remain entertaining today, where I'd take it out for a quick game or two in between breaks.

b) Productivity
As mentioned above, iPod + WIFI = unlimited potential.
Besides games there're also tons of useful applications out there....

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Saying this, that iPod could've almost took over the daily chores or basic tasks that most people would do on their computer.

(III) Built-in Speaker

Not really a major shout-out but I do appreciate able to listen to music without putting on earphone, especially useful during bed time, a few songs before getting myself hyptonised into dreamland.

Thumbs-down:

Audio Quality

Although iPod's original purpose was music player, it doesn't really shine that well though.
I've read below-average reviews raving on the iPod's sound quality but I don't really bother much because everyone perceive things differently eh.

It wasn't until I tried to play a familiar song on the same earphone, and I noticed something seems to be "missing". Then again, when it comes to audio it's kinda hard to be described with words. So the best bet would be compare it to the Walkman.

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Seems like the American company has yet to achieve the quality close to the Japanese company.

Small Screen

Although the 3.5" is bigger than my handphone's, I can't help but to find it tiny when viewing websites. Surely, it wasn't the most effective method to display a full-size website. It does however, perform rather well on mobile-specific websites or it's applications.
I guess that's why iPad gain vast popularity, as bigger screen = see more = improve efficiency.

Battery Life

Another minor thing I noticed bout the iPod is how fast the battery drains, especially running games.
But to be fair, running multiple apps do need adequate power to cope with the demand, battery-intense functions such as WIFI connectivity, GPS etc.

When compared to iPhone's battery life, iPod does score pretty decent though. 2, 3 days per charge compared to at least once per day.



The iPod seems to be getting outdated as the new iPod Touch 4G had been launched few weeks ago.
With better screen display and camera-added, surely it seems to be a worthwhile upgrade from the 3G.
But anyway, I'm happy with my iPod Touch 3G to serve as my personal media & entertainment device. :)

In the meantime, I might be doing further reviews on:
iPhone 4
ASUS UL20A

No guarantee but iPhone 4 is definitely will be going on!

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