Guest review written by Sam Hulse (samhulse.co.uk)

Basics
For people who already have phones on reasonable contracts (or for Crackberry lovers), Apple introduced the iPod Touch. And lets be honest, most people (especially those less tech-savy) don’t actually know the difference between the iPod and it’s bigger brother the iPhone. Lets face it - there’s not much difference - apart from the obvious lack of ability to make phone calls, send texts or take pictures.

Storage
Despite being the same price, the iPod does benefit from having twice the storage capacity of the iPhone; and let’s be honest with such a device boasting so many features: it does help to have room for some actual content. Storage wise the iPod Touch is sufficient but for those who like to take all of their music with them wherever they go the Touch probably isn’t a sensible choice.

Basic Applications
The music library is nicely organized, a customizable dock allows quick access to your music depending on how you like to browse (by Artist, Song, Album, Genre, Playlist etc) and the coverflow feature is definitely a good touch though it doesn’t have much of an everyday use. Videos are of decent quality and play fit nicely on the 3.5″ screen and the YouTube video application is a nice feature also, but again usage of this particular feature is limited in everyday life unless you’re an unashamed YouTube fanatic. The iPod Touch as standard also comes with Calendar, Clock (with World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer features), Safari, iTunes Store and Contact Applications.

Extended Applications (Update)
Unfortunately the update which allows iPod Touch users to have the Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes applications comes at a price (unless your iPod was shipped with firmware 1.1.2, iPods shipped with firmware 1.1.2 or (1.1.3 from now on) can get the update free), However this update is beneficial to the iPod. The Mail and Contact applications work together - so having the Contacts application on there now has a purpose. The notes feature is also very handy. The ability to have multiple home screens and to add websites to them, along with the rearrange feature is another great bonus to the 1.1.3 update.

Conclusion
However, the iPod does have a few annoyances. The metallic back of the iPod scratches very easily. Many of the features including most of the new Apps rely on WiFi, so if you’re out and about and not in a WiFi hotspot you can’t use the Maps feature to find new locations or directions, which does limit the usefulness, the weather won’t be updated and you can’t download new emails. The iPod has an “intelligent” dictionary and will auto correct mistakes while you’re typing. It learns about common mistakes you make and picks up on your writing style, but also gives you the option to cancel these changes before they are made but this can slow typing down, and abbreviations like “lol” are automatically capitalized to “LOL” no matter how many times you press cancel on the auto correct, and there isn’t a way to edit this in the iPods dictionary.

I can’t help but feel incredibly let down by it Apple for charging for the iPod Applications as well, it’s a bad decision and forces people to pay extra money for something which either should have been included from the start, or come at a price for everyone. It’s not like it’s updated firmware or OS, it’s a set of applications and there is no reason to charge other than Apple wanting to make more money out of people who are already paying through the teeth. First gen users have also had to put up with a lot of bugs, updates and changes in software and still are being punished - and because of this, the iPod suffers.

The iPod is a great device, but unfortunately there are too many downsides. Maybe the next gen iPod Touch will be something special, but for now the cons outweigh the pros - just buy an iPhone.