I was looking for a small device which would let me play music, audiobooks, surf the Internet and email. After reading lots of reviews, I narrowed it down to Archos 5 120GB Internet Media Tablet WiFi 5″,High Resolution Touch Screen 800×480 pixels,convenient leg stand. and the Ipod Touch.

In the end the fantastic price of the ipod Touch won me over and I’m glad it did.

There are always going to be people who argue, it doesn’t do this, it doesn’t do that. But what it does do is an incredible amount of functions and does them all very well. At the apple app store you will find many free and low-priced apps which are great – including games. I certainly recommend you get the free battery magic app which shows you in detail how much battery life you have left and how many hours of audio, www or games that translates into.

Had no problems hooking up to our wireless broadband to get on the Internet. Surfing the Internet is very easy and you can quickly zoom in and out of pages with a finger pinching movement over the screen. You can open multiple windows which you can’t on some small devices. Typing on the screen (say if you’re on a forum) is much easier than you’d think and fast. I’ve written quite lengthy posts with it.

You can set up multiple email accounts to download your messages onto your ipod – very easy to do. There is a calendar where you can set up birthdays and events. The clock function is brilliant, it also has a timer alarm and I’ve used it several times to remind me when to remove puddings from the oven.

Music-wise brilliant (if you use your own headphones and not the supplied ones!) although I mostly use it for audiobooks. It remembers where I last listened up to and resumes from there.

If you download a free app called Stanza, you can read ebooks on the device. You might think reading off a small screen is too hard but it is very comfortable and stanza lets you adjust text size to suit. Great for whiling away the time if you’re stuck waiting for something.

All-in-all this is the best gadget I own – no it doesn’t take photos or video but I’m glad about that because if it did it would a have to be a lot bigger and b would cost a lot more. Great item
Rating: 5 / 5

After giving my MP3 player to my daughter found I missed not having a way of playing portable music. My son having an I Pod I went for the 8GB version, am so impressed cant believe what a fantastic piece of tech this is. The wifi conductivity is very useful allowing access to E Mails, News, Traffic info and lots more, the number of useful available apps is amazing, many free. So much more than a music player, great for games too. And the price of the 8GB version an absolute bargain.
Rating: 5 / 5

I have never really been an Apple fan, but they have got it right with this device.

Everything that I have ever done on a Windows-based PDA or Smartphone is totally overwhelmed by the user experience in the touch interface on this device – things install and uninstall seemlessly, apps are cheap or – more often – free, the orientation works well, the video capabilities are great, the browser (Safari) handles most websites really well. Being able to dab at the screen with my oversize digits, without needing to pull out a stylus, is a real gift. Even iTunes, which is necessary to put your music and other data on the device, can be set to be relatively unintrusive on your PC.

However, a few things that bug me are the “walled garden” inside which everything works – I, being a bit techy, would like to see more of the inner workings – how much memory is being used, how efficient the file system is, whether or not uninstalling an app really clears it from the memory etc, but we are protected friom analysing any of this data.

Secondly, this device has a photo viewer, and photo software, but no camera. Even the new iPod Nano has a camera, as does the iPhone – why not one in the iPod Touch?

The device does not support Flash – this is a major problem, given how much Flash is used on the web – come on Apple and Adobe, sort it out – even my Windows phone and my Wii support Flash, and Flash Video is the ubiquitous standard for video on the web.

Although this does have Wi-Fi capabilities, sometimes I want to use web-centric apps (which, face it, are most of the apps!) when I am not in a Wi-Fi area, but do have 3G coverage on my phone. I have found I can pair this very successfully with my Windows Phone (running WM WiFi Router) to create a local Wireless LAN that the iPod Touch can use to browse the web etc.

Final comment – even though the battery life is good, buy a 2nd charger to use wherever you go – work AND home is a good plan. Oh, and it doesn’t come with any protection – so get a good case and screen protectors too.
Rating: 4 / 5

I wasn’t really in the market for an iPod Touch, but I was given this one. Man, I absolutely love it! I’ve had it for a couple months now, and I can’t imagine going back to life without one.

Basically, this is the non-phone version of the iPhone, which means it can do anything they can do. You can check e-mail (I have three accounts set up in it). You can search maps. You can play lots of fun games. You can download apps. You can surf the web on Safari, Apple’s browser.

Of course, the catch with all of these things is that you must to connected to wireless internet to do them. You’d be surprised at just how many networks there are out there you can join. Most require a password, but many businesses offer it these days. True, it isn’t a substitute for a real computer, but it is dang close.

Oh yeah, it also plays music and movies. I haven’t used it for a movie, but I have found that it is nice for music on the go. Granted, my only other portable music device is an iPod Shuffle, so the ability and choose songs as I am listening to them seems lovely.

Here again, however, it would be nice if it came with a case or armband. As it is, all you can do is stick in your pocket if you want to carry it around.

Yes, it is expensive. But it would be completely worth it to me. After playing with it for a couple of months, I don’t want to give it up at all.
Rating: 5 / 5

Was a little worried that the 8GB would be too small, but the memory is more than enough for a huge amount of music and films. Not sure why anyone would ever need the larger memory. Fabulous product.
Rating: 5 / 5