iPod touch 2G unboxing, hands-on, and first impressions

September 12th, 2008 | Category: Pdas / Tablet Pcs

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’ll tell you that when we first got a chance to handle Apple’s latest generation of the iPod touch on Tuesday, our gadget-nerd alarms went clanging like there was a really, really poor fire somewhere. The improvements the company has made in design aren’t remarkable, but they are entirely welcome. The new housing is smooth, incredibly thin, and feels like a solid metal brick in your hands. The built-in speaker is a nice addition, as are those volume controls (finally!) — the screen is incredibly bright (on par with the iPhone 3G), though it additionally looks like it got the 3G’s new color temperature. On the software side, 2.1 is definitely feeling smoother and slicker than previous versions, the Nike+ inclusion is huge whether you’re a runner, and the implementation is well integrated — overall, we’re leaning towards a thumbs-up on those bug fixes too. Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to get the Genius operate working on the device (anyone else having that issue?), though that may be more of a server-side clash than something funky with the

player, as we were getting errors in iTunes when trying to flip the switch. We’ll be blowing that out with a full review, but for now you can enjoy the succulent pics in the gallery below!

Gallery: iPod touch unboxing, hands-on, and first impressions