posted by: Hiral Bhatt Oct 6 2009 @ 3:27 pm

Two years ago when Apple launched the iPod touch, it instantly achieved the title of the best portable media player in the market. The iPod touch was nothing more than an iPhone with the phone call functionality stripped off, which means it still had the same awesome multi-touch display and the brilliant interface design. Soon enough Apple launched the App Store, which opened the door to thousands of applications and games on the touch. Few other players in the market could match the touch for what it could offer, and predictably, the touch is the market leader in its segment.

Now, with over 20 million iPod touchs’ sold, Apple has issued an update to its fastest growing iPod to make it nearly invincible in every way. They first reduced the 8 GB model’s price and introduced two new models of 32 GB and 64 GB, with a faster processor and a host of new features. We got our hands on the 64 GB model and tell you what has changed and just how good the new touch is.

As a media player

Let us get the stats out of the way. The iPod touch can play AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV in audio and H.264 and MPEG-4 formats (640 x 480 at 30 FPS) in video. Although audio-wise the touch covers almost all major formats (save for FLAC or WMA) it really loses in the video department and you still have to convert videos before transferring to the device. In a day and age where even mobile phones can play DVD rips by just dragging and dropping them on to the phone memory, the idea of converting videos seems pretty pre-historic. The only good thing to this might be the presence of zillions of video converters available for iPods, means all you have to worry about is the waiting period between starting the conversion and the video being played on your iPod touch.

Coming to the actual performance, the audio quality on the iPod touch is simply excellent. The touch displays proficiency and command across the entire frequency spectrum and does not falter anywhere leaving you with nothing to complain about. The max volume is also pretty high and the touch had no problems even tackling large headphones comfortably. There is also a built-in loudspeaker but it is pretty small considering the cramped space in which it is installed. And as with small speakers the audio output is pretty weak; there is just no bending the laws of physics there. So unless you are in an exceptionally quite room there is little use you can put the speaker to.

As usual the iPod touch comes with a few equalizer presets built-in. But as usual there is no manual equalizer and you still get bone jarring distortion when you use the Bass Booster preset. I found it best to stick with the Normal preset. There is also the Shake to Shuffle feature, which shuffles the playlist when you shake the iPod and a volume limiter function. You can also set a uniform volume for all tracks in iTunes and then use that same setting in the iPod touch using the Sound Check function.

Listening to music on the iPod touch is as much of a visual experience as it is aural. The large display looks stunning if you have a high resolution album art in place. In fact I never bothered to keep album art for my music but ever since I got the touch I have been religiously downloading album art and embedding it using iTunes, just so that it would look great on the screen while I’m flicking though the Cover Flow.

The iPod touch had the Genius function that would suggest tracks similar to the ones you are listening, but now it has the Genius Mixes feature, which automatically makes multiple playlists out of similar tracks and albums on your iPod. Unfortunately, both these features require the presence of iTunes Store in your country, which is not the case in India, so we do not get to experience these features.

The Voice Control feature works pretty well. You can play, pause, stop go to next or previous track by using your voice and saying simple commands. You can also make the player play songs from a particular album, artist or playlist or find out what song is playing right now. You can also control the Genius function this way. To use this feature you need to press and hold the centre button on the earphone (the Home key cannot be used for this function as in the iPhone 3G S). For the feature to work properly you do need to speak clearly though.

The overall multimedia performance is pretty satisfactory and although it does not have the extensive format support of its competitors and requires conversion before transferring videos to it, it makes up through the small but significant features (like Cover Flow or Voice Control).

As a Pocket Computer

Due to the presence of a wide range of apps built-in and several more available on the App Store, Apple is now calling the iPod touch a pocket computer, which to be honest, isn’t far from the truth. You have a great web browser, the Mobile Safari, which is widely known to be the best mobile browser currently available. Although it still cannot do things like downloads and display Flash content on the page, it makes up by being really fast and the pages look just as they would on your PC screen. You also have a mail client, a stocks application, a YouTube player, a calculator, a calendar, a contacts app. Apart from this you have huge range of free and paid applications available on the App Store, which luckily is available in India.

The upgraded hardware has made the iPod touch a bit faster. Now applications open and close faster than before. Images appear faster when scrolling through the picture gallery. Scrolling is faster in Safari and you see less of the chequered pattern in Safari while scrolling. However, the difference isn’t really drastic and not many people would notice it.

All of this does make the iPod touch a really functional device and although it might not exactly be a “pocket computer” due to lack of true multi-tasking capability it is still pretty close. However, a lot depends upon the Wi-Fi connection and unlike the iPhone or any other smartphone, you cannot just switch over to GPRS if there is no Wi-Fi around. Without Wi-Fi, you would be missing out on most of the fun part, so you better make your home wireless before you go for this one.

As a gaming device

In September when Apple announced the new iPod touch, they directly compared it to established gaming platforms like the PSP and the Nintendo DS. They mentioned the high cost of gaming titles for the other two platforms compared to the iPod touch and several times higher number of games available for the touch. They stated other aspects of the iPod touch that make it superior to the others, such as the multi-touch interface, app store which makes buying easier and the presence of an iPod (which somehow they think matters in a gaming device).

Now let us face some facts. First of all, even though iPod touch’s multi-touch display is really amazing, nothing beats playing a game with proper controllers. The flat display of the touch just doesn’t give the same feel as a joystick. Also, some games require you to use the accelerometer and turn the device around to control the game. However, when you do turn the device around you don’t see the display properly and the accelerometer control isn’t the most accurate ways of controlling anyway.

Also, the graphics on the iPod touch cannot compare to those on the PSP. Just check out games like God of War: Chains of Olympus or Gran Turismo on the PSP and you’ll realize the games on the iPod touch don’t stack up in comparison as far as the graphics are concerned.

Apple really boasted about the amount of games on the App Store, which was in excess of 21,000, several times that of the PSP and DS combined. However, as we have found out many of these games are pretty lame and only few are actually worth playing. And when you consider those games only, you realize that the number significantly drops down to a more comparable figure.
What I like about gaming on the iPod touch is the App Store, which makes it incredible easy to download games. Also, there are many free games available, something you do not find on the PSP, so even those who don’t have to pay can play. The small size also makes it easy to carry it around than the PSP and it can do a lot more than what the other consoles can do.

In the new iPod touch 32 GB and 64 GB, the faster hardware has made a significant impact on the loading time of the games. While the older touch would still be loading the game, on the new one you would have already begun playing. The games themselves also run a bit smoother with slightly higher frame rates. The new touch also has support for OpenGL ES Version 2.0 that would allow developers to create games with better graphics. It needs to be seen whether developers start making games that take advantage of the higher power in the new iPod touch (and iPhone 3G S) but by doing that they would be alienating the older iPod touch users, whose hardware won’t be able to handle the new content.

Verdict

A stray thought of comparing the iPod touch with all other media players out there had crossed my mind, but then I realized the futility of it. There is no doubt that the iPod touch, as an overall device, is far beyond the reach of any of its rivals and there is nothing in the market that could compare with it right now.

You do pay a slight premium for it, Rs. 18,400 for the 32 GB model and Rs. 24,400 for the 64 GB model but it’s still worth it. The 8 GB model is identical to the one that came last year, save for a new OS 3.1 software built-in, but is still priced at Rs. 12,400, despite the fact that the price was reduced in U.S. If I had to choose between the three, I’d go for the 32 GB model that has all the new improvements and is not very expensive.

Apple leaped ahead of the competition two years ago when they launched the iPod touch and the gap now has just increased significantly. This is the player to buy right now if you are willing to spend over 12,000 rupees. Period.

Sourced from www.techtree.com