Anyway,today I thought I'd write a review of the 2nd gen. iPod Touch. Bought this gadget dubbed as the 'Funnest iPod Ever' 2 weeks ago while on holiday with my fam in Singapore. So I've had 2 weeks to explore n evaluate the things I like n the things I don't like about the latest iPod in the market. So read through if ur interested,if not then go read something else ;p
First off,I'd like to explain the differences between the 1st gen and the 2nd gen of the iPod Touch. The 2nd gen has a thicker body,but due to its curvaceous back,it feels thinner than it actually is. The screen is brighter,with a slight yellow tint and the battery lasts longer than the 1st gen. And the biggest difference is the addition of onboard speaker and physical volume buttons. There are some more minor differences such as faster processing speed,smaller package,thats about it. So now lets get back to business :D
Design
The iPod Touch looks very stylish with a black facia with chrome accents around the front. There's only a handful of buttons to play with,the Home button,the Power buttol n the volume button. The back is full mirror chrome finish and looks fabolous. But as with most iPods,the finish is very prone to scratches so if u don't use any casing,be prepared to look at the back as if it had been bruised by Wolverine,ouch! So here's some pics of the iPod Touch:



Looks nice huh? Trust me,it looks much much nicer in person. And part of the reason is the absolutely gorgeous screen. The screen measures 3.5" in size,with a high resolution of 480 x 320 pixels. The screen is super sharp,super bright and is suprisingly useable in clear daylight.

Viewing Photos
Due to the great screen incorporated into the iPod Touch,viewing photos is a pleasure. With storage options of 8GB,16GB,or 32GB, there's plenty of room for u to store pictures in the iPod. Pictures look great on the iPod,and scrolling with ur finger feels remarkably natural. Slide ur finger sideways to scroll to the next/previous picture,double tap to zoom in,or u can even 'pinch' the screen to zoom manually. It really feels good and responsive,and the pictures load instantly,unlike some media players. U can also play a slideshow of the pictures,complete with music if u want. Furthermore,u can instantly email any photos with a tap on the screen. Awesome!


Listening to Music
As with any iPod , the essence of the iPod touch is listening to music. The sound quality is fantastic! It's much better than the iPod Shuffle,which has a lot of noise and the sound quality doesn't really improve regardless of the quality of ur earphones. The iPod Touch is not noisy in anyway,and u do notice the difference using a quality pair of earphones. I would also like to note that the Apple earphones provided in the package is crap,maybe that's because I prefer in-ear earphones. Anyway,the sound quality is stunning, n slightly better than my N95 8GB. It has quite a bit more bass, and the instruments sound a bit clearer.
The music interface on the iPod Touch looks classy, and displays the album cover of the song u're listening to. And u can also configure it to display lyrics of the song on screen so u can sing along,very neat! Here's a screenshot of Greenday's new album while listening to their hot song Know Your Enemy :

Watching Videos
One of the most beneficial thing of the widescreen display of the iPod Touch is watching videos and movies. It's great watching movies on the iPod Touch,with great resolution and smooth framerates. One nice thing about the movie playback is the iPod remembers ur progress on the movie,and will resume from that point onwards on ur next viewing. All in all,watching videos n movies on the iPod Touch is a pleasure and should be one of the reasons to buy this gadget.

Youtube and Safari
Yes, for the first time in iPod's history , the iPod Touch has a built-in WiFi antenna that work in 802.11b and 802.11g networks. Sadly, it doesn't support 802.11n but that's not such a big deal. The inclusion of the WiFi capability is what attracted me to the iPod Touch. Yes, my N95 has WiFi built-in but somehow the iPod Touch's Wifi seem to be faster and much more stable.
With the inclusion of Wifi, Apple has also included a Youtube application in the iPod Touch. Interestingly it feels the same as if u were to watch Youtube on ur computer. The videos load quickly, and looks great. The only thing I don't quite like about it is that the comments are not viewable like it is if u were using Youtube on the computer.
Using Apple's native browser, the Safari to surf the internet is a bliss. Webpages look great, and looks the same like on the computer. How far mobile internet browsing has come in the last few years. The controls are intuitive as always, double tap to zoom on a particular part of the page, and scrolling with ur finger. And a major plus is the ability to have multiple pages at at time, again bridging the gap between mobile browsing and computer browsing. Way to go, Apple!



So that's basically it for Part One. In Part Two I'll talk about stuffs u can do with ur iPod such as installing games, apps, and a process called Jailbreak. Stay tuned :)














