Easy to use MP3 player. Review on Apple iPod

I tried for the longest time to stay away from iPods. I was a creative  MP3 player user way back when the iPod came out and I could never  understand the things. They were expensive when other MP3 players were  cheap, they locked down digital rights all over the place, they had  inferior sound quality, they insisted on software that is, really, worse  than most viruses and, above all else, they're made by Apple - the  pinnacle of style over substance and just about the summation of all  that is wrong in the world. I was frustrated that "iPod" had become a  synonym for "MP3 player". I hated the adverts and the  self-congratulatory smirks on the faces of people walking down the  street proudly dangling their white headphone cables over their  coats...I could go on, but I'll try and keep focused...

It's fair to say then, getting me to use an iPod was a  hard sell by any measure. Throughout the various generations of iPods,  I've known people with the things and I've always kept the same opinion -  expensive and worse than other MP3 players on the market. This year,  however, two things happened to sway my opinion.

1) I bought a new phone, the Samsung  i8910 HD. I mocked, as I did so, my girlfriend who had decided to opt  for the iPhone. My Samsung would have a much better camera, a bigger,  brighter screen, it would have more connectivity options, standardized  cabling, it would shoot video in HD!

Needless to say, a year on, I'm  counting the days until I can upgrade to an iPhone - the usability of  the iPhone is hands-down better than the Sammy and the amount of Apps  available on the iPhone is just phenomenal. This made me think - maybe  some of this style, this slick user interfacing on the iPod...maybe  there is value in that.

2) My brother in law bought a 4G iPod Touch - I was able to play the  games I'd got used to playing on my girlfriends's iPhone, but on an  incredibly slim little device. I'd not seen anything else around as slim  as the Touch.

So, always being open minded, I decided that it was probably worth  taking a step back and looking at things objectively. I read , researched  various MP3 players, tried a couple out in shops - the conclusion?  There's been a change. Yes, the iPod is still expensive. Now, however,  it's better than anything else available on the market - and that, for  me, is a big deal.

So, as it happened, my girlfriend had been watching me doing this  research and when our anniversary came round she bought me a 32GB Touch.  As I started to use it there was still a little part of me that wanted  to just throw the thing on the floor and stamp on it, but I thought I'd  better at least see what life is like on the other side - and you know  what, it's not too bad.

The device, in itself, is near faultless. It's light enough to hold  comfortably for prolonged periods, but heavy enough to feel well  constructed. The screen is bright and sharp and the touchscreen works  superbly. Coupled with the slick operating system, this makes for an  incredibly usable interface - certain games and (especially) Google Maps  really bring this to life - and it just seems the easiest, most  intuitive way to do things. The sound quality on the Touch (which is,  after all, designed to play music in amongst the videos and apps!) is  actually surprisingly good. I'd be lying if I said it were the best I'd  ever heard, but it's definitely up there.

The applications are, of course, the key strength - there are apps to do  most anything available - I must admit, though, that most of my apps  are little games...flick football, flick fishing and the Settlers of  Catan conversion have wasted more hours of my time than I'd care to  admit - and they're great to play when you arrive somewhere early and  just need to pass a few minutes in the car (which, incidentally, the  Touch integrates with seamlessly - I now have no need for the piles of  CDs in my car...)

The package is only really let down by iTunes, which continues to  astound with it's awfulness. The thing seems to need upgrading every  other day - and often requires 70-80MB downloads to do so. Not a big  deal, but seriously - how many bugs can there be in one application!?  Synchronising multiple devices is harder than it needs to be - and the  way it handles unknown artists /albums is annoying at best. On the  upside, I found it surprisingly easy to upload all of my old MP3s into  iTunes - and the synch does work very well now it's up and running.

Overall, I think I'm going to have to give a 4 star  - the device should be 5  stars, but it's let down by a lack of software options out of the box.  Now they actually have the best player, hopefully Apple can stop trying  to keep such tight control over what people do with them - open them up  as mass storage devices and let people choose which software to use!