Apple iPod touch (2nd gen) review

Average user rating

7.8

very good

Average user rating from 4 users

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Apple iPod touch (2nd gen) user reviews

September 16, 2008

Posted by: Pokeh

"Pricey but worth every penny"

What I like:

WiFi, Web Browser, BBC iPlayer functionality, easy to use, large touch screen, decent battery life, nice customisation options.

What I don't like:

Requires iTunes (kind of), screen is kind of glossy and can act as a mirror at times, built-in speaker isn't that great, bundled headphones aren't amazing.

Review:

So here it is, around a year after the original iPod Touches release we've got a second version out. So, how good is it really?

I'm going to get this out of the way first: This thing is gorgeous. Seriously. It's thin, it feels like it's got a good build. You get the point. It's pretty sexy. The user-interface is also easy to use and easy to understand.

We've also got a large touch screen. The screen delivers a nice, clear picture and videos show up quite nicely on there. But I know what you're thinking: It's got a touch screen and fingerprints will ruin it. Well, this is part true, and part untrue. The fact is that fingerprints aren't very noticeable when you're using it. Only when the Touch is turned off (Or on standby mode) can you notice where your filthy fingers have been. Luckily though, Apple give you a black cloth for you to wipe the screen with, so if it gets too dirty for your liking then you can always just clean it off.

Then we've got all of the applications. I found myself browsing the web on this thing the most (While listening to music at the same time). You know what? Steve Jobs was right in saying that this is "the funnest iPod ever" because it really is a joy to use. When you type stuff out you've got an on-screen QWERTY keyboard that's easy and simple to use. After a few minutes surfing the web I was pretty efficient with it.

So then we've got e-mail. This is extremely easy to set up. The first time you tap the E-Mail icon you get an option between Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail (Or Googlemail), Yahoo! Mail. AOL and Other. Hotmail isn't there and when I pressed on Other and typed in my details I couldn't get it to work because, from what I can gather, you need to have a paid account to use it. Anyway, getting it work is easy, as I said earlier. You just what your details in (Name, e-mail address and password) and it works. Simple. This gets my thumbs-up. Lack of Hotmail support may bug some users but something tells me this is more of a problem to do with Microsoft than Apple.

Another plus is a YouTube application. Just tap it and you're good to go. You can browse featured videos or do a search for one. From how i've used it it works well.

Now you may have noticed how I said that you have BBC iPlayer functionality. This isn't actually on the Touch by default but all you need to do is go to bbc.co.uk/iplayer and then you can watch just about anything. I thought this was a really cool feature. Especially useful if you can't get on a PC and want to watch some TV. You can even add a shortcut to the BBC iPlayer website on the main menu, which I thought was very useful. Again. Another thumbs up.

If the iPod Touch is lacking a feature that you want then as long as the hardware supports it then you could most likely get an application off of the Apps Store (Some are free, some aren't).

There are some negatives however. First of all the iPod Touch requires iTunes. Kind of. There are alternatives out there that you can use instead of iTunes. You can do a Google search for "iTunes Alternative" and you'll find something there. Experiment to see which ones suit you. I believe that some of the options available are Open Source, so as long as you have the know-how you can tweak the application to work as you like. And yes, are are options for Windows, Mac and Linux. The bonus here is support for Linux. iTunes currently doesn't support Linux but there are other programs that you can use so that you're not forced to use Windows/Mac OS X if you don't want to.

If you use iTunes just be aware that the music on the iTunes Store has DRM on it. DRM is Digital Rights Management and puts restrictions on how you can use a piece of content (Such as music). This is a big thumbs-down. But don't panic, 7digital has a wide selection of DRM-free music for you to download.

Also the built-in speaker is pretty much useless. It's quiet but loud enough to annoy anybody who may be unfortunate enough to be sitti