Geeks.com, home of several cheap iPods, sent us in for a review an 8 GB iPod Touch 4th Gen for a review. Here’s what we found.
The fourth incarnation of the iPod Touch is an interesting upgrade, since it’s the first one to include cameras. It comes with a 1MP back camera with 720p video recording, and a VGA front camera. Other changes over its predecessor include the usage of the A4 CPU at 1 Ghz, 802.11n (2.4 GHz only), a 3-axis gyroscope, and a microphone. The 4th Gen is significantly thinner and lighter than its predecessors, measuring at 0.28 inc thickness and just 101 grams. The battery life has seen an upgrade too, measuring at about 40 hours of audio and 7 hours of video. Last but not least is its all new Retina Display, with an uncanny 960×640 resolution and 24bit color.
The negative points on this version of the iPod Touch is the inclusion of only 256 MB of RAM, compared to the iPhone 4’s and iPad 2’s 512 MB. This might have a future impact where some apps, or OS versions don’t work with 256 MB of RAM. The other point is that pressing the volume controls is very difficult because they’re placed slanted on the side (a common design trick in order to make the device feel thinner than it is). Without a case the device simply slips from my fingers when I try to press the volume buttons (because I have to hold it unnaturally to reach them with my left hand).
Regarding the new camera support, I found the back 1 MP camera to be many times worse than the front VGA one. Sure, it’s got more resolution, but there is a lot (and I mean, a lot) of noise, and with very limited latitude and low light support. The VGA front cam instead, can see much better in the dark (and it’s able to keep up its 30 fps in most conditions), has no noticeable noise, and it’s only hindered by its lower resolution. FaceTime in particularly worked really well for the few times I tried it. Skype video chat on the other hand is eating battery life like a cake: 21 minutes of video chat with my mother ate up 40% of battery (wifi, low screen brightness). On the upside, my mother, a non-technical person, noted the following: “Is this a new camera you got there? It’s like watching you on TV (tech translation: she meant a smooth 30 fps)! And your skin looks so clean! (tech translation: she meant a noise-free image)”.
I bought iMovie v2, and it works well on the Touch 4G, although I personally found the third party ReelDirector app to be a more powerful video editor than iMovie.
The device we received came with iOS 4.1. We successfully upgrade it to 4.3 without an issue. No scientific benchmarks, but the device is visibly faster than both my older 1st Gen and 2nd Gen iPod Touches. Scrolling is smoother, loading of apps too.
With iOS 4.x some new, very well received, features appear: a form of multitasking, folders for app categories, AirPlay support, and of course, FaceTime. One feature that doesn’t seem to have gain much traction by users is the Game Center though.
Overall, I find the iPod Touch 4th Gen to be the best small-personal media player device out there. It’s modern, fast, elegant, with a slew of apps in our disposal, and pretty cheap. However, it could definitely be better: a larger display, HD webcam, 3 MP back camera with flash, an additional phone-style speaker for audio chats via VoIP. iOS-wise, I’d love to see the ability for apps to exchange files between them (e.g. exporting WAV audio from one app, to load it on an effects audio app, to then load it on an song arrangement app etc.), and universal OBEX support. But really, this device is close to perfection.
FTC 16 CFR Part 255 Disclaimer
The device was sent to OSNews for free, and to keep, in return for the unbiased review, and a citation to Geeks.com. Geeks.com, or Apple, had no influence or involvement in the article’s findings and opinions.
http://www.rockbox.org/
Edited 2011-03-21 23:45 UTC
Which doesn’t support any iteration of Apple’s ipod touch. What’s your point?
So what is the iPod touch now really ? A smartphone without the phone part ?
I’m probably one of the few on this site, but I’ve never owned such a device so I really don’t know. I would guess like smartphones they just ‘evolved’ into this.
More-or-less, yes. Even storage-wise there isn’t really any difference nowadays.
It’s a smart wifi-communication+gaming device perfect for kids, and for those who still use a Blackberry or an older feature phone. Not much point for those who already own an iPhone, and in some cases, an Android phone.
As much as I dislike Blackberry’s they can do Wifi, communications and play MP3’s.
This is a spot on comment. If I let my kids play on my phone the battery would get flat – shortly before I need it!
Another way of looking at it is as the current evolution of the PDA. The Home Screen and way iOS operates even vaguely resembles the older Palm OS.
I use mine as a PDA/Music/Gaming device.
My phone is a 3G Nokia S40 candybar. I prefer having it separate for a few reasons:
– most phones I’ve tried have pretty crap sound quality, iPod is somewhat better.
– it’s nice to be disconnected and _not_ have email/net/push everywhere. I have Opera Mini, if I do need to look something up.
– It’s cheap compared to an equivalent converged device (iPhone). Both devices are relatively inexpensive compared to a smartphone with equivalent capabilities ($79 + $289), losing/breaking one or the other doesn’t mean I’m $700+ out of pocket.
Exactly. Only a year or two ago people were pronouncing the death of the PDA. (At this website, even.) I’d argue that the old view of the PDA was too narrow, and the old OS’s were obsolete. Attempts to modernize and expand their domain came in fits and starts, but the popularity of the iPod Touch, and the growth of the tablet device, suggests that PDAs have not yet given way to smart phones. After all, not everyone wants, or can afford, an $80/month phone+data plan.
Edited 2011-03-22 15:09 UTC
The first and the last imusic device I owned was the iPod Mini, don’t even remember how long ago. Had a small black & white thing, bad quality earbuds, but it had 4 Gb storage and could be used as an external harddrive. It also came fee (I won it! first and probably last time I won something – had to send in some code on Coca Cola bottles, knowing the winning times helped
)
Anyway, I would have been happy with it, but the first time I connected it I had to install iTunes. Which was fine by me BUT. Granted, I was careless, clicked yes YEEESS without really looking – and ended up with all my neatly organized music fsckd up. Then I realized that although I can use it as an external harddrive, I can’t copy music to it normally. Sold it when the SonyEriccsson W800i came out – it had only 512Mb storage (extendable) but better quality earbuds with remote control… overall, it worked better for me. Ever since then, I used my phone to listen to music.
Now I’m shopping for an MP3 player again. I had tons of classes with listening activities. A single level from a single book has 3 CDs – I want to keep them separate from my music collection. I was eyeing the iDevices, they have a very competitive pricing (devices from Sony with about the same storage are basically the same price). My question is this: will iTunes screw up my music collection if I go for the iPod touch? I know it still needs iTunes, but has iTunes improved recently. I guess you still can’t just copy files over, but I’m fine with that as long as iTunes doesn’t mess with the way I organized my collection on my PC.
iTunes will let you keep your music organised however you wish it to be. That has been an option since I don’t know when.
I believe the default choice on windows is to now leave your music as it is.
I am probably somehow dysfunctional or something but I have absolutely no use for such devices. I carry a mobile phone with me all the time anyways and a mobile phone does all the things one these does while also including the ability to send and receive SMS messages and phone calls. Ie. it’s basically just better to buy a phone that can do both tasks than shell out money for two devices where the functionality overlaps.
With ever more powerful mobile phones and even plain feature phones nowadays starting to sport really good multimedia features and big screen the need for separate media player devices is only bound to diminish over time. Manufacturers need to think of something new that would set these devices over the competition from mobile phone market in order to keep their place in the overall market, innovate a bit more. It remains to be seen if they can do that or will competition from mobile phones with multimedia capabilities continue to push them out.
I’ve been using a combination of fairly simple Nokia smartphones and a separate media player for years. I love that my phone battery lasts ages and the phone is actually desinged to call/text people.
I tried using my phone as a media device. There are few advantages like pausing music while receiving a call. On the other hand with bluetooth headphones and music playing the battery didn’t last through a day at work.
I suppose the phone was poorly optimized for such use. I can have music playing the whole day, with wifi and bluetooth on and in constant use, and still last 18 hours straight.
So yeah, poorly optimized phones won’t last long, well optimized ones will last just as long as any other media player devices.
I’m really interested in a phone that could act as a media player and that lasts entire day on single charge with 6-8 hours of pumping music through bluetooth headphones. Suggestions?
My experience with that is with HTC Desire and Jabra 3030. After 8-9 hours the Jabra battery will be dead and if you don’t use the phone for other intensive things it will have 40% battery left after that 9 hours. So I get through the day but it is kinda close. I now use a 60 euro sansa clip with 15 hours battery time and find it a much better solution although you miss out on accepting calls.
phones to a pretty crap job of managing music (outside of an iPhone or a windows phone 7)… you know why? Android has no decent music management software for a PC. (leave your Banshee at home please)
The bigger touch is the iPad. The cameras still suck though. Why Apple can only put really good cameras in iPhones and not other iOS devices might be because they are too thin. Sometimes too think can be bad and I think this time it is bad. Make it the same thickness as the iPhone and put the better cameras in there.
Apple doesn’t put really good cameras in iPhones. Phones at less than half the price have better cameras.
I think you have never used an iPhone 4 camera.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/camera.html
I’ve seen hundreds of pictures taken with them. They all are noisy, and have a yellow tint and over-saturated colours. And no, I’m not talking about the hipstamatic-filtered ones (although the lousy quality might explain the popularity of such software). Fact is, it just doesn’t take good pictures, no matter how good the conditions.
It’s a phone camera!!! WTF are you doing trying to take a decent family picture with it?
Touchy, aren’t we? I’m simply pointing out that claiming the iPhone4 camera as “really good” is false, even compared to other phone cameras. It’s a piss poor camera for the price, despite what Apple’s marketing and fanboys want you to believe.
it is really good in the context of phone cameras.
you are using metrics someone judges a DSLR or a prosumer camera.
Dude. I’m comparing it to other phone cameras from the likes of Sony Ericsson and Nokia. Stop making shit up.
This must be old. I’ve had a 4th gen Ipod touch since October 2010. Bought it at Costco …
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iPod_models
Confirmed, Ipod 4g came out in 09/2010 ….
There’s nothing old about it. This is the current model. If you want reviews to be published the week the devices come out, talk to Apple to put us in their reviewers list. Easy as pie. Not.
?? $200 for the device the day it is released. ,… ? Only review free devices?
OSNews members don’t get paid for their work here and as such it would be unreasonable to expect them to pay for the devices they review.
I just didn’t understand
I mistakenly thought the author was staff, not a member of the site 
She is staff member, but OSNews isn’t a pay-for site. They don’t pay staff members, staff members work here for free.
Yeah, I wish it was that easy. I personally would love writing reviews and trying out gadgets, see what makes them tick and so on, and I consider my linguistic output to be of high enough quality to be able to actually make readable, interesting reviews, but alas, I don’t work for any high-grade gadget company or news outlet and as such I never get the chance to do anything.
There is no point in writing reviews for age-old devices and being unemployed I can’t afford to buy brand new ones all the time so that also limits the whole thing.
That said it’s great you guys still sometimes get free gadgets to review even with OSNews not being one of the heavy-weight gorillas in the field.
YOu probably pissed Steve off like Leo Laporte did a few years ago 🙂
Yeah. What’s the point of reviewing a device 6 months after it is released?
The iPod touch is a killer product for Apple though. At $250, it is a third of the price of the unlocked iPhone, with almost all of the same features. Wifi is in many places, so you can make calls with Skype or Facetime for free. You can play all the same games as the iPhone (which makes it useful even to Android users, as the game selection is so much better), and it runs almost all the same apps as the iPhone as well.
I got my wife an iPod touch for christmas and she loves it for the games, apps for learning german, and facetime when I’m travelling to my iPhone. She doesn’t want an iPhone, she just wants her regular cell phone and the iPod touch for entertainment.
I am assuming (so I could be wrong), that the author got the Ipod recently (like in the last 3 days), and posted a review on it, in order to keep the ipod.
how have you been a site member since 2005 but do not recognize Eugenia? She practically ran the site full time back then.
I have to assume that you meant to reply to some other topic. If you read my post, you would see why I confused her as staff and not a contributor …
I’d second that. There really isn’t any point in doing a generic ipod touch review at this point. There could be some merit if it had been hacked and used to control an army of zombie catfish or run haiku. But, I would feel a bit silly doing the review myself. Like a dad giving his non children having 20 something daughter tickets to the justin beeber. I understand what you were trying to do, just really late and without much thought.
What’s the point of reviewing this now, you ask?
It’s shipping. It’s selling. There are people out there wondering if they should buy one. A year from now people will be offered second-hand models and will want to research the 4g model’s virtues and faults. Not everybody lives on the cutting edge all the time.
And a hundred years from now techno-archaeologists will be researching what their distant ancestors thought about the thing and writing dissertations about it. [Hi there youngsters, did you put virtual flowers on grandpa’s grave today?]
And anyway, it’s their site, they put on it what appeals to them. If it does not apply to your life, don’t click the link. How hard is that?
Good point. They can do what ever they like with the site. However, what’s wrong with a little constructive feedback from the audience?
My main complaint is that there isn’t anything noteworthy about the review. It could be from PC world, engadget, gizmodo, or any other review site. If you;’re going to do a review of a non new piece of hardware do something worthy of those future researchers time. How does it compare to a third generation classic Ipod? What about an Archos device? What can be done to allow it to be used with Alternative Operating systems? There is nothing about it that says “OS News”.
I like this kind of quick review from a trusted source. Especially after all the hype has dwindled down.
Fair enough. Can’t say there was that much hype in any of the mainstream reviews of the device. If geeks.com woudl like to send me a free ipod, I’ll be sure to give it a review worth of a link to such an esteemed site.
“There is nothing about it that says “OS News”.
Agreed. The site owners have been expanding the scope of the site for quite a while now. Search the archives and you will find a review of OpenOffice.org back in 2008, for example.
OSNews has gone far beyond “news about operating systems”. Perhaps they could consider a re-branding. Mind you, re-branding generally costs money.
No, I didn’t mean that it wasn’t specifically about operating systems. I meant that it wasn’t in any way unique. If you took it out of context and asked people to identify where it came from, they wouldn’t be able to do it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about operating systems.
Alternative operating systems are good when they do something different than those already available. This review doesn’t seem to be any different than any of the others. For the same reason why dog bites man is not news, but man bites dog is, this review is not a good review.
I have a 3G iPod Touch and the one thing I am missing with it is a microphone. Starbucks may just start seeing a lot more Skype traffic from us who work remotely often, and like to sip frappuchinos at the same time. Why bother with an iPhone when most of the time I have wifi access anyways and can connect google voice’s incoming number to Skype?
It cost 99c to add one, what are you waiting for? They just plug in the earphone jack and you can still use it for sound at the same time.
For me the absence of SDXC expansion slot is the major showstopper. May be it will appear on both iPod and iPad at the same time.
I have this wonderful noise canceling headset. It does not have A2DP, but I usually listen to audiobooks. But the iPod won’t play through the speaker! AirPlay is dead air. It comes up and I could do voice command, I just can’t listen to the actual music.
Speaking of audiobooks (iPads do this too), there is no way to delete an audiobook. You can remove songs, but they don’t have the audiobook features like 2x playback. You have to tether with iTunes.
And I have this great bluetooth GPS – but again I can’t use it (non jailbreak) with the iPod. I’m stuck with the wifi triangulation that doesn’t work a lot of the time when I would need it – like on country roads.
Brightness is broken. I change brightness far more than the volume – the screen isn’t sunlight readable, but is blindingly bright at night, and the “auto adjust” doesn’t do much. Of course I can’t swap the volume control buttons, nor is there any kind of popup – that would make too much sense. I have to exit whatever I’m doing, go to preferences, then to brightness. (and whose preference is it to bury Bluetooth in General?). There are nice jailbreak solutions for this too. There needs to be a systray / dock / or whatever so that you don’t have to exit apps – this is the other part of multitasking – allowing a few important things in the middle of other apps.
It is a half-baked device – it does a few things extraordinarily well, and has a few stupid, annoying things (apparently “defective by design”) that make it seem like an obsolete feature phone.
I have it for development, but I can’t really recommend it. And I don’t expect them to ever fix these things nor let developers do it.
I believe there may be a couple factual errors in the review. First the back camera is only .7 MP not 1 MP. Although the difference is small, as a percent, it is large. Second, the display is a TN panel, which almost by definition is not 24 bit but 18 at most.
When this device first came out (could it really have been 6 months ago?) I went to look at it with the intent to replace my iTouch 2G. I found the 4G to be not perfect at all.
The screen was worse than my 2G. Although it had a higher resolution the contrast was worse. In fact another website test the contrast and measured it to an very low 200:1, compared to the iPhone 4 at 800:1. Everything had a blue haze to it. As a result dark scenes suffered in both games and movies. Each one I tried at the Apple store exhibited this problem. Besides, I don’t believe I was the only one who thought that with an increase in resolution there should have been an increase in size to at least 4 inches.
Handling the device was a problem. Apple’s obsession with thin had gone too far. It was just too hard to hold by the sides.
The cameras were, as pointed out, abysmal. Video with the back camera was OK but stills were completely useless lacking any kind of reasonable resolution. And again the problem with holding such a thin device was an issue. The sound had not been improved from the 2G.
In the end I decided not to “upgrade” as my 2G was doing fine. The positives in the increase in RAM and processor speed were offset by other compromises I was not willing to take. I could not help thinking that Apple was really milking-the-cow by building some cheap things into latest generation, and in terms of the camera, technology many, many generations old.
Edited 2011-03-22 14:31 UTC
“Without a case the device simply slips from my fingers when I try to press the volume buttons (because I have to hold it unnaturally to reach them with my left hand).”
You’re holding it wrong.
Sorry, just had to point that out.
Loved my 1st gen touch, would have one of these if I hadn’t needed the iPhone 4 for work. (What, no cracked glass back? What fun would that be?)