Alternative Addiction's Review of the iPod Touch | Alternative Addiction

To the casual observer, the new iPod Touch isn’t that much different than the old iPod Touch. You couldn’t be more wrong. They’ve added a camera… in fact they’ve added two cameras. It’s also thinner and lighter AND with retina display the screen looks more vibrant and amazing than the previous generation.

When you put the 3^rd Generation iPod Touch next to the 4^th Generation iPod Touch you can tell how vastly different the two devices are. To the blind eye, they devices seem similar, but when you take a closer look, the 4^th Gen Touch is lighter and thinner. It measures at just over a quarter of an inch- 7.2 millimeters to be exact and it weighs just over three and a half ounces. It’s smaller and lighter than the previous versions, but the screen is still the same 3.5” display so you’re not giving up any of the big beautiful display that the device is known for.

The functions of the hardware are basically the same- multi-touch display that works amazing, a speaker so you can play games and watch videos without headphones, and the buttons are all the same too- the sleep/power button is at the top and there are volume control buttons on the side. They have taken more time with the buttons with the updated version- the sleep button is on the opposite side on the top, and the volume controls are divided into two buttons instead of being one big button.

There are tons of huge additions and features to the 4^th Generation iPod Touch but none are bigger than the resolution of the 3.5” screen. The 4^th Gen Touch has retina display and it features a 960x640 resolution display. Old apps look amazing on the new Touch and Movies and TV Shows look better than ever with that 326 pixel per inch display. With some apps it was hard to see detail on a 3^rd Generation Touch. That’s no longer the case with the retina display- you can see everything.

The retina display is huge, but the for first time the iPod Touch features a built-in camera. In fact it features two built in cameras. The main camera is on the back of the iPod and it takes some decent photos of 960x720, but it also records HD Video in 720p and can record 30 Frames per second. It’s a capable video camera that’s simple and convenient to use. The camera above the display is lower resolution- VGA- but still looks great and takes decent photos and also does video at 30 Frames per second. The addition of the cameras on the iPod Touch are huge, but bigger than that is the ability to use the two cameras to chat with FaceTime. Facetime is an app that allows you to have video conferencing with a person on another iPod Touch or an iPhone User on WiFi. FaceTime is the easiest video conferencing tool or application available on the market for any device. If that doesn’t sell the iPod Touch, I don’t know what does.

Under the hood of this iPod is a lot of juice with the A4 chip. The 4^th Generation iPod Touch looks and runs better than ever. Movies and TV Shows look amazing and it lets you interact with your music like no other device does. But the iPod Touch is also known as a great game playing device. In fact, you have to think Apple’s wonder device as second place in the portable gaming market. It's really first if you include the iPhone, but Nintendo still has the portable gaming market covered for now... the iPod Touch made Sony's PSP a footnote in the market and that's pretty incredible. The new iPod Touch is better at games than ever. There is a new built-in three-axis gyroscope running for gaming. When you add that to the accelerometer it’s not just sensing motion- it’s sensing almost every motion. It can measure acceleration, 3D altitude, and rotation rate. Basically what that means is the gyroscope and the accelerometer features make motion games better than ever. Hardware this is awesome, but running IOS 4.1 the iPod Touch gets even more advantages.

The big note with playing games on your iPod is Game Center. It’s the iPod equivalent to Xbox LIVE, except from a portable viewpoint there’s never been anything quite like it. You can add friends and competitors with their email addresses, you can compare high scores and you can find competition when you’re looking for it. It’s a huge addition to the gaming aspect of the iPod Touch.

IOS 4.1 is outstanding. It features Game Center and you can download and install iBooks on the iPod Touch as well. There’s also supported multi-tasking when you have apps that can work together. The additions you would expect are made too- email additions, simple folder organization, you can create and edit playlists, and Ping is now supported as well.

The 4^th Generation iPod Touch doesn’t look like much of a change to people who aren’t already fans of the device. But for people who own previous versions- there are enough new features to warrant an upgrade. For people who are in the market for a portable device- this is the best one on the market out of any iPod or any portable media player. It still has its problems- the size of the hard drive remains too small on even the 64GB unit. And let’s face it…. The price tag is a bit steep, but if you have the money or you want to spend the money on a high-end device this is the way to go.