Video:4th Generation iPod Touch Review

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Transcript:4th Generation iPod Touch Review

Hi, I'm Sam Costello, the About.com Guide to iPhone and iPod, and today I'll be reviewing Apple's 4th generation iPod touch.

What Is an iPod Touch?

The iPod touch has been a great success in the past thanks to its combination of music and movie features, great internet access, and its huge library of apps available at the App Store, especially the games. The 4th generation iPod touch takes all of those great things from previous models and adds a number of the best new features from the iPhone 4 to create essentially an overall terrific portable media player, internet device, and game console.

iPod Touch Display

One of the first things you'll notice about the 4th generation iPod touch is that it's inherited the Retina Display screen from the iPhone 4. The Retina Display screen is a high-resolution screen that smoothes out all of the jagged lines in text and graphics that you might see on lower-resolution screens. Basically, there's no screen this high quality that you'll find on a device this small. It really makes things look excellent.

iPod Touch Video Conferencing

Another major feature that the iPod touch has inherited from the iPhone 4 is the ability to use FaceTime video conferencing. It's gotten those feature thanks to the addition of two cameras to the touch, one facing the user and one facing the back. The cameras that the iPod touch has, though, are a little bit different than the ones available in the iPhone 4. While the touch can also record 720p high-definition video, the still photos that it takes are at a much lower resolution than the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera, whereas the best camera on the 4th generation touch is just under 1 megapixel - and you can really see the difference there. The touch probably isn't going to be a great device if you want to take a lot of high-quality photographs, but for mobile video it's not bad, and certainly for FaceTime conferencing, it's nice to have those features.

iPod Touch 4 Improvements

Like the iPhone 4, the 4th generation iPod touch has a number of improvements under the hood as well. First off, it's got a new, faster processor, which you'll see when you're running apps, launching apps, loading web pages things like that. Compared to previous generations of the iPod touch this one is a good deal faster.

Additionally, it's a got a well-improved battery and, in my testing, I was able to get about 35 hours of continuous use out of the device without another charge. So, including standby, powering the device down, things like that, you're looking at a good long time to be able to use the iPod touch before you need to recharge.

iPod Touch Storage

The 4th generation iPod touch offers the same three storage capacities that the previous generation did: a 16GB model for $229, a 32GB model for $299, and a 64GB model for $399. One of the interesting things about the touch is that its 64GB model offers more storage than the iPhone 4, which tops out at 32GB. So that's a nice feature that you get, sort of in exchange for the touch not having a phone in it.

While the new cameras that are included in the 4th generation iPod touch aren't great, and they're certainly not as good as the iPhone 4, the faster processor, and the addition of FaceTime and the Retina Display screen, all add up to make the 4th generation iPod touch a big upgrade over previous models.

This is the best iPod touch yet, and is a great buy for anybody who wants all of the terrific music, movies, games, and internet features that the touch has traditional offered, but doesn't want to pay the monthly fees associated with the iPhone.