Amazing What It Can Do

Most of the other reviews have places in theirs where it's like they're reading my mind. Because the "It Doesn't Make Sense" review is incredibly in depth on certain aspects, I won't rehash those. But I do want to give my overall experience with it and mention things others haven't.

Why I Bought It
First, I want to say that I have had other mp3 players, including a Rio, Creative and Zune. I currently still have and use my Zune, which replaced my malfunctioning Creative. On that note, I want to say next that, as another reviewer said about himself, I used to be an iPod hater. I never thought I would get an iPod, and one of my friends and I used to sit and bash the iPod. We felt like it was for people who had tons of money to throw away just to be fashionable or have what everyone else has, and I saw so many people online who had problems with this, that or the other with their iPod that they needed help with (and, honestly, still do--I answer questions on Yahoo in the Music & Music Players section). But when I saw ads for the iPod Touch, I couldn't help but feel like that seemed really cool. I finally got one and have had it for over 6 months now.

Features
Until fairly recently, I kept holding on to the idea that the Zune was the best player so that I wouldn't become an irrational iPod "fanboy" like a lot of iPod users are. But the more I use the iPod Touch and explore its features, the more I lean towards the iPod Touch (don't know anything about the iPhone, but it's also not really an mp3 player, per se). A lot of things I originally preferred about the Zune apply to the iPod Touch, as well, but I didn't realize it because I wasn't using everything the Touch has to offer.

When I first got my Touch, I didn't have access to wifi, hadn't upgraded the firmware on the player so that I could use many applications and was just used to the Zune, particularly the FM Radio. This was true for months, so I basically just played my music collection, feeling like this wasn't worth the money (am not very into movies and other videos, and definitely am not interested in spending time converting videos to put on here). But what I understand now is that if you can't use the wifi, this is really nothing more than an overpriced mp3/video player and you're better off with the Zune or some other player. You will only be using half of what the Touch is there for. Also, with good headphones and the right EQ setting, as another "audiophile" I think this player has excellent sound quality with more volume than any other player I've had or tried. Originally, I didn't like the sound quality, but I found that a lot depends on the headphone/EQ combination you use, not necessarily the Touch itself. I agree with another reviewer that having the customizable EQ on the Touch that is on iTunes would be great, though. Volume is a big deal to me, though, so I was in love with the volume on this player right away.

Applications
Another big deal to me is having access to the radio, for some reason, and at first glance the Touch lacks this feature. Now, I really didn't like this about the iPod Touch for some time. I'd seen people online saying you could get radio stations on the Touch, though, with some applications and just otherwise making a huge deal out of applications. But as I said, I didn't have wifi or upgraded firmware, so I got a wireless router for my house (which adds to the $600 I spent on this, which was for the player + tax) and upgraded the firmware (which was $10 more). It's very difficult to tell from reviews of applications which ones will play what radio stations, which is a problem with applications that cost money. But what I found is many, many good apps are free. Most of the apps I downloaded are free, and one of the radio apps I paid for really does play the majority of the radio stations I wanted, including all but one of the ones I listen to most on the Zune.

This has taken care of the "no FM Radio" issue when I compare the Touch to the Zune, basically. Not only can you get a lot of local radio like with the Zune, you can get most internet radio, radio in other cities and other countries. I am sitting in Tennessee listening to a great station I found in Wisconsin as I type, and I play stations that I loved when I was living in Michigan and Chicago daily on the Touch. For me, having this completes the Touch, making it nearly worth the money, if not totally worth it. There are so many apps, for watching videos and playing games, plus getting YouTube and e-mail on the Touch, you won't believe it's possible to hold all this in your hands. Even some of the sites you discover through looking for apps are incredible--case in point being clickonradio.com, where if you hear a song you like on pretty much any radio station but don't know its name/artist, you can look it up on that site.

That doesn't mean the Touch is not without its problems...

Limitations on Usability
I agree with the "It Doesn't Make Sense" review about wifi. Like I mentioned, I would not be able to do more than just play my music files if I hadn't bought a router for my home. And when I go out, that's all I'll be able to do with this because these radio stations won't play without wifi or 3G. I see people with iPhones write reviews about listening to radio stations on the road, and that honestly would be nice with as much as I travel. In a way, I did all this upgrading just to do something I could partially do with the Zune for "free" and could do with my laptop by going to a radio/internet station's site online. For me, other applications don't really matter that much.

Weird Little But Still Annoying Things
The Touch also has a lot of glitches, which are the kinds of things I saw people complaining about online before I bought my player and see people complaining about daily now. I've had problems with album art disappearing, on the go playlists disappearing after I add new songs to the Touch, random returns to the menu when I'm in the middle of something, certain songs not playing all the way through no matter what, songs syncing multiple times, etc. Leaving the Touch on all the time in "sleep" mode is also not a good idea, as my experience tells me that is part of the reason why my Touch stops what its doing and returns to the menu--it needs to be turned off sometimes or rebooted. The one thing I can still say about the Zune is I've had almost no glitches with the actual player (the software is a pain, though). It also doesn't find all the album art or always the correct album art on iTunes for you, and if you found album art for the Zune through the Zune software the art won't transfer to the iPod--you have to find it again, unless you use a program like mp3tag that embeds the art into the file itself.

Touch Screen
I also find that the touch screen, while cool, is also annoying. I particularly hate the auto-lock feature (which locks the screen to your Touch, making you have to slide a bar on the screen before you can work your Touch) and the fact that there is not an easier way to change the volume. The volume issue is annoying in part because the auto-lock issue is--sometimes you need to change the volume quickly or turn the song off quickly, but having to deal with auto-lock messes quickness up. Having to touch the screen for everything also makes things like working out or doing things without needing to look right at the player challenging. Needing to touch the screen options in a certain way can sometimes be challenging, as well. The progress bar for songs also sometimes won't move, say, if you're wanting to skip ahead in a song. Oftentimes when I play a song all the way to the end and press pause to go do something, I come back and the player goes to the next song but the album art stays on the prior artist.

Second Generation Features Missing
Would love to have a speaker, for example, or be able to use more of the apps that are basically for the second generation.

Other Features--Shuffle, Genius, Videos, Batteries
One thing I love about and was used to with the Zune was all the ways to shuffle your music on the player, and that's missing here. The firmware update adds "Genius" to the Touch, which is supposed to create playlists for you based on similar songs to the one you selected. "Genius" needs work in terms of accuracy. I would much rather just be able to select "shuffle artist," "shuffle genre," "shuffle album," etc. I wish there were an app for that or an app that was like Genius but better (one called Instinctiv is supposed to be out there, but you have to jailbreak your Touch for it to work. Pandora is kind of like it, but it doesn't use your music collection like Genius and Instinctiv).

Also, I did try to put some videos on the Touch that weren't from iTunes. The videos looked perfectly fine on my laptop, but they were horrible on the Touch. One of my friends said I'd have to convert it to a different resolution or something along those lines, but I still can't understand why the drastic difference. I know there are videos that look amazing on the Touch, because I've seen them. But the one TV show I would want on my Touch looked bad. I also still find the screen to be too small to watch videos satisfactorily, but then I also kind of don't like 20-inch TVs, either.

I also wish the battery would last longer when you have wifi on and/or auto-lock off. Overall, I'm very happy with the battery life and can say it's better than the Zune's.

Conclusion
I can't deny it--this (the Touch, period, not necessarily the 1st gen) is probably the best player to come out so far. Whether or not it's worth the money depends on what you want in a player. All the reviews here stress different things that make the Touch good, bad and great depending on the individual. My first and foremost concern is music, but people who appreciate the Touch the most seem to be features-happy (i.e. "it can do this, that and the other" or "it has way more than other players").