Manufacturer: Apple

Model: Touch Third Generation 64GB

Pros: The Apple iPod Touch can hold 64GB of storage.

Cons: This MP3 player does not have an FM tuner.

The Verdict: If you are looking for an MP3 player that offers more than just music, this is the best option for you.

Every once in a while there is a company that comes out with something quite extraordinary. When they do that creation redefines the way things are or the way they work. The Apple iPod Touch is one of those things. Sine 2001 Apple has been making iPods and they started right off changing MP3 players by adding an unbelievable amount of storage for that time. It wasn’t until 2007 that they really went outside the box and released the iPod Touch. Though typically more expensive, Apple’s products are well engineered and user friendly which makes it all worth it for a large proportion of MP3 users.

Still to this day there are very few other manufactures that have decided to step up to the plate and take their MP3 players to the next level with the Touch. The closest competition is with the Zune HD and the Creative Zen X-Fi2. Aside from those two products and the iPod Touch, flash drive MP3s drop off to smaller players with less storage, which isn’t as comparable. Those smaller players are significantly cheaper but they don’t have the capabilities as the Touch.

As far as music goes the Touch is about the same as any other MP3 player. It plays the songs and sounds good, plain and simple. The things that set it apart are the interface and user functionality. First of all you can get up to 64GB of storage space which ends up being around 14,000 songs and 30 hours of playback. That’s about the most you can get currently without going to a MP3 player with a hard drive. That’s a lot of music so Apple made the interface so you can browse by albums, artists and songs. “Flick” through the alphabetical lists quickly and find specific songs. You can also create playlists for your favorites or genres. Lastly there is a built in microphone that really sweetens the deal. With Voice Control you can speak simple commands that you want the iPod to do. Some examples would be like “random”, “play”, “next song”, and even ones like “play artist Linkin Park” or ask to play a certain playlist or album. Along with that, if you dump a friend’s playlist on to your Touch and you aren’t familiar with some of the songs, when you come across of those songs you can ask what song is playing and your iPod will answer you. That feature is especially nice when you are using the Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic so you can leave your iPod in your pocket.

Like the name indicates, the iPod Touch is a touch screen player. Apple uses a multi-touch interface and an “accelerometer” which gives the Touch some very convenient advantages. Multi-touch basically allows for “flicking” through photo albums, “pinching” to zoom in and out and is integrated into some of the games. What does that mean? It means less menu navigation and no more single click scrolling through your media. Single click navigation can be quite slow but with touch screens navigating anything is substantially faster.

The accelerometer basically senses the position of the iPod and adjusts the screen accordingly. This gives you the ability to use portrait (the iPod vertical) and landscape (the iPod horizontal) with most anything. A good example would be the photo album again. Let’s say this particular album has a combination of single person pictures (like in a yearbook or on your I.D.) as well as the family photos. Typically single person is shot vertically to capture as much of the person as possible and be close up. Then with the family pictures you usually get horizontal shots so everyone makes it into the picture as well as stay as close up as possible. The problem with viewing the family photo with the screen vertical is that you’d end up with empty space above and below the picture (like the black bars when watching a widescreen movie on a standard TV). With the iPod Touch you simple rotate the device so that it’s horizontal and the image rotates and goes full screen. It also works the other way around but with vertical pictures.

The last few goodies are the icing on the cake. The iPod Touch obviously doesn’t stop at music but includes all kinds of media you can put on it. The iTunes store gives you access to download music, movies, games and always growing population of apps. There are apps for just about everything now days. You can do photo editing, learn a language, get news, track finances, fitness programs and the list goes on. All the features like the Accelerometer, Voice Control, and touch screen are all foundations to limitless possibilities for all kinds of media.

As we have explored the vast realm of the Apple iPod Touch, you can see what a great product this is. It’s an excellent combination of usability with enough possibilities to do about anything you need. It really isn’t hard to see why this is one of the best MP3 players in the world.