Honest iPod Touch reviews, help wanted?

[MINKIN2]

Hi guys,

I have recently been thinking of getting an ipod touch but I'm still a little unsure at this point as it appears as though "honest" user reviews are thin on the ground. So I have come asking here for advice as many of the review websites seem to harp on the few buzz words from the Apple spin mill and have very little substance, then their are the fan boys from both camps just spouting thier usual drivel. You guys are a lot more level headed :)


My primary urge to buy one is for the game offerings from Gameloft and others devs as their games seem to be hitting apple first and foremost. This is the main reason for owning one and being a big gamer and I want a piece of the action :)


Can any one recommend a decent reveiw site, mod forums, share their own experiences or help choose a peferred model?

All advice is welcome, but please bare in mind that I am not looking for alternatives.

Thanks

[ForeverNewb]

I transitioned to iTouch 2 months ago putting aside my 810. I am an old guy so my idle gaming experiments are probably without merit to you. But, I have been impressed by the quickness and smoothness of the games I have tried. Graphics are great. Some of the games challenge my eye-hand coordination with the small form-fit-function but that just may be a generational thing.

In comparing my iTouch to my Android Incredible phone, Apple apps are significantly more smoothed and polished, have better GUI, and are surprisingly 'deeper' in content and complexity.

I'd recommend the maximum memory model that fits within your budget.

Hope this Helps...ForeverNewb

[Mentalist Traceur]

I think that it should be worth it for you, if you're basically getting it for the fancier latest games. For me, of course, I'm just happy with the N900 and want nothing else (well, no, I want quite a lot, but I am happy with the N900), but I've played with iPhones, and while I find their screens to be slightly less precise than I got used to with the N900, for games designed to be played on the iStuff, it should be just fine.

I recommend Osmos as a game. If I had the spare money lying around, Osmos alone would be almost worth acquiring an iPod Touch.... maybe... I don't pay attention to iPod touch prices these days.

So that's my cent (not two... I don't have that many to contribute on this) on the matter. I haven't used the iPod Touch, and I've used occasionally but never owned iPhones... I feel that for what you're intending on using them for, they should be just fine.

[ysss]

If you're buying one, there are LOADS of good apps & games on promo on iTunes right now... $9.99 ones going for as low as $0.99 (many EA games). Might want to buy those first before the promos are over.

[Laughing Man]

Which iPod touch were you going get? I got my fiancee one for Christmas. A iPod touch 4th generation, 8 GB ($200 from Amazon around Black Friday). It works extremely wonderful for her. I've succeeded in getting her interested in games (puzzle at the moment). She loves Cut the Rope, and there's this other one that involves fitting tetris like block pieces into pre-determined shapes. She also tries a few non-puzzle games (but she's a new gamer). I've downloaded some of the more interesting ones like the engine demo to see how it was like.

Basically: it works well, games are fun to play. If you have any specific questions I can answer them for you.

For me I've had problems getting the touch screen to accurately respond to my finger touches (nothing new, I seem to have that problem in general). So it makes gaming a little difficult for me personally. But I'm sure I could adapt to it if I kept trying. She had the same issue at first but now she's a natural at it. I still have issues (maybe it's something with the oil on my fingers..)

[MINKIN2]

Thanks for the replies guys, you have certainly given me much better opinions than many of my friends who have all offered the same advice of "get an iphone, you can play Angry Birds on that too". *sigh*

So after looking around and playing with one in the apple store, I am still undecided but have a better idea of what I want.

@ForeverNewb. Your advice on getting the model with the most memory for my budget is deffinitely one of the things that has me caught on the fence. Should I go with the larger 3g model with more memory for my budget or smaller 4g model with the better screen? I will only be playing games after all.

@ Mentalist Traceur. I could not agree more, the iPhone would never be a replacement for the all mighty n900 but then like many other users on these boards, we feel the itch to get under the hood of our gadgets and Nokia lets us do this.

@ysss, oh wow I never knew they did that. +1 for Apple on that one.

@Laughing man, thankyou. Can I ask if there are any file transfer (or vnc) apps that could be used to transfer files from the n900 to an iDevice? I was thinking of maybe using the n900 as a seconary storage device and I don't think I could keep it for too long without tinkering, lol

Thank you again guys

[ysss]

@minkin: btw, as for memory size; what kind of games do you like?

A great majority of iPhone games go around 20MB-150MB. Some of the higher production games (more content, higher texture quality, with some video and audio) can go for hundreds of MB (for example the enhanced Secret of Monkey Island is 400MB... crimson saga (great rpg!) is 700MB... GTA: Chinatown is 700ish MB... and just a handful of games are over 1GB: Rage HD, Infinity Blade..).
But, again, a GREAT majority of games are less than 100MB.

[Laughing Man]

@Laughing man, thankyou. Can I ask if there are any file transfer (or vnc) apps that could be used to transfer files from the n900 to an iDevice? I was thinking of maybe using the n900 as a seconary storage device and I don't think I could keep it for too long without tinkering, lol

I think there are VNC apps, though I'm not sure if they could be used to transfer files onto the iPod Touch's storage. If I remember correctly, Apple doesn't give you access to the file system. Maybe ysss knows more about that. I haven't tried any VNC apps myself since she doesn't have any interest in that functionality.

[ysss]

Sorry, I can't help you there since I don't use 'memory sticks' much nowadays...

I use Evernote to consolidate my notes and work files. They're synced on all my machines (main machine, a travel notebook, a travel tablet and my smartphone).

If you have a specific usecase that you can share with us, maybe I can suggest some apps to use, workarounds if any, or tell you right off if things would be too inconvenient/expensive/whatever.

[MINKIN2]

Hi guys, sorry for not getting back sooner. It's a busy time of year, lol. However I am still very greatfull for your replies.

Anyhoo, Santa was kind enough to give me a £100 cash injection so it looks like an iPod is definitely on the cards now :D

To answer your question ysss, I will mostly be looking in to playing the 3D games such as Nova2, Gangstar and many of the other console oriented games. I did not realise that many of them would be so huge in size (but I did guess they would be a fair few Mbs?). That was my main concern with transfering files with a file transfer tool, as an aid to store games on my PC and transfer my games over as and when i wish to play them.

Would I be right in guessing that if you purchase a game/song/app from the store, then you can delete and re-download it without the need to pay again? That would make things much easier.

Then there is the big question of Jailbreaking the device, as this has been recomended by everyone I have spoken too. What are the real benefits of doing this?

Thanks guys

[droitwichgas]

Both my children have got one and they both love them, it is great for games and has ysss states in his post EA sports have some bargains at present i.e. FIFA11 for 99p!!! Gameloft have similar games for as little as 59p so for £10 could by enough games to keep you happy until next Christmas. Just a pity we don't have similar offerings for the N900.

Since we bought them last Christmas both the DS Lite and PSP have been gathering dust in their bedrooms.

[Laughing Man]

I believe you can redownload the app as many times from iTunes. Not sure what happens to game data if you delete it from the iPod touch without doing a backup on iTunes.

[ysss]

@minkin: hmmm... nova 2 is ~750MB... gangstar 1 (west coast) is ~250MB... gangstar 2 (miami) is ~350MB. To be fair, these games contain a decent chunk of 3D world to explore... and the latest versions (gangstar 2 and nova 2) include high res textures that looks great on retina displays.

If you use the Touch with iTunes, you just need to go to the Apps menu and check\uncheck which apps & games you want to have on your device, and it will load\unload the apps accordingly on the next sync.

Yes, you can make the purchase and redownload apps for as many times as you want, from any of the compatible App Store 'outlets': iphone, touch, ipad, itunes (win) and itunes (osx). If you purchase an app from any of the mobile device, the binary will be transferred to your iTunes machine on the next sync. This way, the system will automatically gather all your contents to your main machine for backup.

Jailbreaking basically allows the device to run unsigned binaries. Some of them:
- Allows you to run pirated apps\games.
- Allows unofficial apps\utilities that are not restricted to the official API. Some examples: there are utilities to enable 'full' multitasking, alternate UI, skins, 3g-wifi bridging for portable hotspot, and so many more.
- So, there are alternate 'app stores' with unofficial (cydia) even illegal binaries (appulous).


I definitely recommend jailbreaking, but unfortunately the latest firmware (afaik) still has an incomplete jailbreak: it needs to be tethered everytime the device reboots.
On the flipside, iOS based device have been the most stable pocketable device that I've used so far (android, maemo, wm, bb, palmos, zaurus and symbian).
To be safe, just wait til the full jailbreak is released.

HTH

[MINKIN2]

@minkin: hmmm... nova 2 is ~750MB... gangstar 1 (west coast) is ~250MB... gangstar 2 (miami) is ~350MB. To be fair, these games contain a decent chunk of 3D world to explore... and the latest versions (gangstar 2 and nova 2) include high res textures that looks great on retina displays.

If you use the Touch with iTunes, you just need to go to the Apps menu and check\uncheck which apps & games you want to have on your device, and it will load\unload the apps accordingly on the next sync.

Yes, you can make the purchase and redownload apps for as many times as you want, from any of the compatible App Store 'outlets': iphone, touch, ipad, itunes (win) and itunes (osx). If you purchase an app from any of the mobile device, the binary will be transferred to your iTunes machine on the next sync. This way, the system will automatically gather all your contents to your main machine for backup.

Jailbreaking basically allows the device to run unsigned binaries. Some of them:
- Allows you to run pirated apps\games.
- Allows unofficial apps\utilities that are not restricted to the official API. Some examples: there are utilities to enable 'full' multitasking, alternate UI, skins, 3g-wifi bridging for portable hotspot, and so many more.
- So, there are alternate 'app stores' with unofficial (cydia) even illegal binaries (appulous).


I definitely recommend jailbreaking, but unfortunately the latest firmware (afaik) still has an incomplete jailbreak: it needs to be tethered everytime the device reboots.
On the flipside, iOS based device have been the most stable pocketable device that I've used so far (android, maemo, wm, bb, palmos, zaurus and symbian).
To be safe, just wait til the full jailbreak is released.

HTH


Cheers, that has answered pretty much everything I have wanted to know ysss.

I did go out yesterday looking at the iPods, as it stands right now. I could get a 32gb 3rd gen iPod for the same price as the 8gb 4g.

Now this leaves me with weighing up the pros and cons between the two...

4g


Higher screen resolution
1ghz processor
256mb RAM
Better compatiblity for newer games

3g


Price (cheaper for the amount of storage)
Can be jailbroken (now)

Actually that's about it for the pros on the 3g. I may have to look into stretching my budget to the next model up, but with being able to sync I tunes like you said ysss, storage should not be such an issue just more of a bug bare.

Thanks again all

[vkv.raju]

One of the few thing that I like from Apple is the iPod Touch. I would recommend anyone getting one. I don't have one myself yet but would wait for their next iteration (2011).

Btw, todays news is that Samsung is coming up (CES, Jan 2011) with a rival to the iPod Touch with its Samsung Galaxy line.
Check here: http://www.samsunghub.com/2010/12/27/samsung-confirms-galaxy-player-will-showcase-at-ces-2011/

This place will now get interesting atleast in-terms of price...

[MINKIN2]

Well I finally bit the bullet and got me a shiny new iPod 4g. After long consideration I went for the 8gb as I only really want to play the games and still intend to use the n900 as my personal media player :)

There is one thing that is truely ****ing me off now. I am not able to install iTunes due to some unspecified error. Grrrrrrr!!!!!

This is sooooo bloody ironic. The number of times I have installed Quicktime and had to unselect iTunes because of the evil things it does to other media software, and now it does not want to play. I have even uninstalled my old copy of quicktime in an attempy to clear previous Apple data and now can't reinstall a newer version.

Stupid Apple!

Oh well, I will keep trying.

[tHMZ]

im gonna buy one just for the gaemz and apps and internet and ebooks. im gonna jb and install cracked apps. buyin from my friend, 2nd gen one

[MINKIN2]

Ok this is pretty, although I can't fathom how to get the caps lock key to stay on?

How are we supposed to ride with CRUISE CONTROL on without having to press the shift key with letter? I'm going to have to seek help from the Mapple forums.

@droitwichgas, these prices are crazy aren't they? I have just bought 7 games for a fiver :D

That will keep me busy for a while!

Thanks again all

[ysss]

Double tap the shift key to make it stick. (it'll turn blue)

If that doesn't work, maybe you need to manually enable it in the settings (general-keyboard-enable capslock).