iPod or iPhone?

Round-up by: Nate Lanxon

Last updated: 03 Oct 2007

The iPod nano's tagline -- "A little video for everyone" -- is quite accurate. A little video is all you should put on here. If you want to carry complete seasons of TV shows, don't consider the nano. If you're mainly listening to MP3s, a couple of podcasts and some music videos, however, this might be the player for you. If you want to take complete show seasons with you, you'll need to look at...

... the iPod classic. It's the most capacious of all the new models, so it's perfect for carrying complete seasons of TV shows -- even complete catalogues of seasons. It's the one to consider if you like lossless-quality music, as these files take up vast amounts of space. If you don't think you need tens of gigabytes of storage but don't want a weedy little nano, you might want to make friends with...

... the iPod touch. With a massive screen, it's perfect for TV shows and photos. The typical touch owner is probably someone who wants to carry more video than music. Its huge screen is designed for images. If you spend time in coffee shops and airports, the Wi-Fi inside the touch will let you check email and buy songs from iTunes. If you like the touch but don't want to carry multiple devices around, it might be time to look at...

... the iPhone. It does practically everything the touch does, but it's also a phone and a camera. Plus, the entire Web is accessible wherever you have a mobile signal. The iPhone has 8GB of memory, so you can store roughly 1,000 songs, 12 TV episodes, 500 photos and 60 podcasts at once. If this suits you, and you need a phone and mobile Web browsing, you've found your perfect match.