Apple iPod Touch 4th Generation 32GB Review

Author's Rating:

Pros: Does almost everything, 2 cameras, facetime, great screen

Cons: No adobe flash, expensive, back scratches instantly, lots of work, wifi only

The Bottom Line: 
The Apple iPod touch 4th generation does everything and is the best iPod touch model to date!

Author's Review
Everyone seemingly has an iPod, and I was one of the ones who didn't have one, so when I saw the new iPod touch and the features it offered I just couldn't pass it up since it has a lot of features I was looking for.  Since I did not own any other iPod before this is a review from a first time owner of one.

First of all before buying one of these I would highly recommend getting your music library in order, since the iPod is a music player after all.  This is where my "A lot of work" comment comes in. If you want your iPod to look nice and be able to navigate your files easily you must put some time into arranging your songs.  It took me months to get my music library in order.  You really can't just buy one of these, and expect it to work instantly, it isn't like that at all.  I also don't think the iPod touch is that good for beginners, unless perhaps you have previously owned an iPod and know what you are doing. If you have a bunch of unorganized songs on your computer, you will have trouble.

The biggest thing is to make sure your files are correctly tagged, which means you have to either use a program to fill that information in for you, or fill it in manually.  The iPod doesn't read the file names on your computer, it reads the tags embedded in the file.  Fortunately there are programs out there that will do all of this for you if you desire to use them.

You will also have to add album artwork to your songs, unless you want lots of blank screens.  iTunes, the program used to place the songs on the iPod, will find the artwork automatically again if you listen to common music from your country.  If you listen to something that is not on iTunes, be prepared for more work.  Its worth it to have all the album artwork on your iPod, trust me, its very cool.

If you are working in Windows, first you have to find the location of your music on your computer, hopefully its not all scattered around, then you have to import the files into iTunes, then from iTunes onto the iPod.  You can import a whole folder of music at a time so if all your music is in one folder, this part is easy.

So now you have all your music organized (hopefully) and you are ready to start using the iPod, so lets talk about some of the features this device has.

The iPod touch 4th Generation has a lot more features than previous models of the iPod touch. If you are buying an iPod touch, this is the one to buy, the other models just aren't worth buying in my opinion. The 3rd generation iPod touch for comparison did not come with any cameras, no built in mic and the screen was of lower quailty and the processor not as fast.

Features:

However the feature list of the 4th Gen iPod touch is robust:

Front Camera for Facetime
Rear Camera capable of taking HD videos and lower quality still photos
Retina Display
Built in mic
A4 processor
Thinner
Better battery life
New volume buttons
Actual speaker grill located on the bottom

First we will talk about the cameras.  This iPod sports 2 cameras, a front and a rear cam.  You definitly want to buy an iPod touch with a camera, because there are a lot of apps in the app store that require use of a camera.  Not to mention the million other uses for a camera on your iPod.  Without the camera, you will not have access to those apps.  Apps are small applications that can be downloaded through iTunes onto the iPod touch that perform various functions.

Apple's website states the front camera takes VGA-quality photos and video up to 30 frames per second. Overall this means the front camera is fairly low quality.  I am not sure I would attempt to record video with the front camera. You probably won't be using it very much, however a lot of people use it as a mirror.  The main purpose of the front camera is to be used with facetime, which is Apple's person to person video chat feature.  To use facetime both users must have a Wifi connection and the other person has to have either an iPhone 4 or an iPod touch 4.  Facetime will likely be coming to other devices in the future, as of now, its not too useful of a feature unless all your friends have the iPod touch 4 or the iPhone 4.

The rear camera is of much better quality, and you will be using it a lot more.  Apple's website states the rear camera is capable of video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; and still photos (960 x 720).  The HD video that you record with the back camera is very good quality.  The iPod also allows you to upload your videos directly to youtube straight from the iPod which is a great feature.  I feel that the back camera takes pretty good photos.  Most of the pictures I see on facebook that come from my friend's cell phones do not come out as good as the ones that this iPod takes.  The pictures show up large and not as thumbnail size when transferring them to the computer.

Other Features

The iPod touch 4th Gen is said to last 7 hours for video playback and 40 hours with just playing music assuming the screen is off.  I have not personally tested these benchmarks but they are better than the 3rd Gen device which only offered 6 hours of video and 25-30 hours of audio.  Apps and games will drain the battery significantly more, so you will get less battery life.  I do not have a problem with battery life on my device, however you will probably be charging this thing every day if you use it a lot.

You will want to purchase a wall charger for this, as the device does not come with one.  iPods can be finicky with chargers, but you can use any standard USB to wall adapter.  Some chargers will give you a "charging not supported on this device" message so its really a crapshoot to find a charger that will work.  I use the music power encore charger, which can be purchased on Amazon, it works perfectly but we will save my comments on that for another review.  Another charger that definitely works with this device is the Logitech USB adapter that is included with some logitech mice.  I have tested both of these and they work fine with the iPod touch 4th gen.

The retina display screen on this device is beautiful and is the best screen on the market.  Beware though its not exactly the same screen as on the iPhone 4, but it is very comparable and most users may not notice much of a difference. Text shows up with amazing clarity, and I can read very small text on it with no problem. Everything else of course looks great.  The only con to the screen is that the blacks aren't very pronounced and the viewing angles can be a little off sometimes but that only happens when you turn the device in an odd direction.  Like most users I view my device straight on so I have no problems with this.  I do not think these are major con's and are definitely not deal breakers.

The built in mic is used for facetime, voice controls, VOIP service if you use that sort of thing, voice recording, and a bunch of other uses you can probably think up yourself.  Its critical to have a built in mic, which the other iPod touch models do not have, since again there are apps on the app store that use the built in mic, and if you don't have it, you won't have access to those apps or you will have to buy a set of headphones with a mic and those can be expensive and hard to find one that works well.

The speaker on this device is very good, its much better than than speaker on the 2nd and 3rd gen iPod touch.  I do not own a previous iPod but friends and relatives do, and you can barely hear the sound coming out of their iPods. I can assure you that you can really hear the music coming out of this speaker, and its great for other sounds such as when playing a video game.  No the speaker is not perfect, but they are cramming it into such a tiny device, so for what it is, it works very, very well.

The device works best when used with a wireless internet connection.  In this day and age you probably already have that in your house, so all you have to do is connect your iPod.  Its a breeze to connect since you just go to settings and select your connection, enter your password if you have one and you are ready to go.  You can also connect to public wifi spots if they are not secured or if you know the password.  There is a lot of free wifi available out there, but you won't be able to maintain a constant connection if you are out and about. If you live somewhere where there isn't a lot of wifi you might find this device less useful while you are out and about, but there are still plenty of things you can do with it for those times when you don't have wifi.

Music and Sound Quality:

The iPod is a music player, so of course I must cover that. If you can get all your media organized, its really awesome and the best music player around.  You can also purchase music from iTunes, and they will already have the album artwork and be all ready for you to use (they won't have the lyrics though). Some people complain about the sound quality on the iPod touch but I find that on my iPod touch the sound trumps any other music player I have had in the past.  The sound is much louder and clearer, and I don't have to crank the volume up all the way just to hear music out of speakers.  The music player is especially awesome if you can get all or most of your album artwork on it and it gets even better if you have the patience to load song lyrics into all your songs.  There are apps and programs that can help with this too.  Its awesome to listen to songs and you have the lyrics right in front of your face.  I have a karaoke machine with an aux jack so when I plug in the iPod touch and since it has the lyrics on it its almost just like having a real karaoke machine, the only difference is that the lyrics don't scroll like they do on a karaoke machine.

Movies and Video

The iPod will also play movies and video, though I haven't experimented with those features too much.  You have to convert your video to an iPod compatible format in order to do this, and again, that can be a lot of work.  You can also purchase movies, TV shows and other video content through iTunes to use on the device.  If you do this watching the content on the device is a breeze.

App Store and Video Games

The app store in iTunes is extensive and has an app to do just about anything.  The app store also has tons of games available.  Apple really delivers in this respect.  Some of my favorites are TextNow, an app that lets you send and recieve totally free SMS text messages, as long as you have a wifi connection available.  Whistle phone, which lets you make free phone calls provided you have a wifi connection and listen to a 10 second ad before placing the call, a small price to pay for totally free VOIP service. You can also read the news, check the weather, and do a whole host of other activities.

There are a lot of video games available in the app store, most are very low cost or free.  There aren't many games over $10 and most will range from $.99 to $5.  This makes the iPod touch great for gamers and great for kids.  There is also a plethora of educational apps targeted at small children available for this device.  Other devices that compete with the iPod touch such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP do not have a whole lot of educational games that kids will actually want to play.  Its great because lot of parents will spend $30-40 for a game for their kid, they will play it once and throw it down and never touch it again.  The parent has just wasted a lot of money. The games on the iPod solve this whole problem because if you get a dud game you are only out a few dollars at the most.  I am really glad to see a device on the market that combats the high price of video games because I hear so many parents complain about how their kids give up video games just a few weeks after getting them or they paid $50 for a game and the kid has finished it in a few hours and they feel like they wasted a ton of money.

Now there is a con here, the games on the app store are usually not full fledged video games, but more like mini games.  There are a handful of very good and long games out there though, and as more and more games make it to the app store there is bound to be more and more good games to come. However the game consoles like the Wii and DS are putting out a lot of similar games and just charging more for them, IMO. I own a PSP and a DS as well as the iPod and for the price you are paying for iPod games it really cannot be beat. I have played some iPod games the same amount as I have played much pricer DS and PSP games.

Also if your kids like Mario, Pokemon, Zelda and other big name Nintendo franchise games, you won't find any of these titles on the app store. So if your kid wants to play these, you will have to buy a Nintendo console.  A lot of 3rd party franchises are there, like Sonic the Hedgehog, and many others.

Another problem with the app store is a lot of games require additional payments to get more content in the game.  This happens even in games where you have paid an up front cost for the game.  I am NOT a fan of this business model, especially in games that are targeted towards kids.  Some games make it so that you just hit a button to make a purchase, and if you have a credit card or pre paid gift card attached to your iTunes account, your child could end up draining your wallet pretty fast if they inadvertantly make a lot of in-game purchases. Some games make it seem like you are not even spending real money, as in they disguise the purchase as "coins' or "points" for the game.  This type of content is optional, but like I said the games go out of their way to direct the player towards the paid options in the game.  Most of this is password protected though, so if you don't give your kids your iTunes store password, you will be protected from this danger.

Price

The iPod touch costs $229 for an 8GB model, $299 for a 32GB model or $399 for a 64GB model.  I personally do not feel that 8GB is enough storage for this device, but some people will choose that model.  The 32GB is definitely the sweet spot, leaving you plenty of room for music, movies, games, apps and any other content you can stuff onto the iPod.  When comparing this to the cost of other similar devices on the market it does not seem like a lot of money.  Especially when a Flip Video camcorder costs around $200 or moer and only does one thing, is bulky and difficult to carry.

Closing comments

Ok I think I have talked enough about this device, this is the device for your life, it works perfectly, and does nearly everything.  Especially if you don't have an iPhone and you don't want to pay the high fees of owning that device. Its literately the iPhone without the phone.  I can't say enough good things about it, the cons are minor (especially if you are an adult or older teen) and should not detract from a purchase of this device provided you can afford it.  When I purchased this I was looking for a replacement for my severely outdated flip video camcorder, inexpensive video games (sick of paying so much for video games that do not deliver) and a music player with lyrics so I can sing!  This device does everything it promises and more, and is not lacking critical features like previous generations of the iPod touch. I did not want to have to carry a device to record videos, one to take pictures and one to play games, it was just getting a little too much, but this is one small device that does everything and it works perfectly.  You do need a little tech knowledge though!