iPod Touch (second generation)

With its latest iteration of the iPod Touch, Apple has added two highly coveted features--external volume controls and a speaker--and lowered prices, too. However, the Touch's physical changes are incremental, and they don't bring the device up to the level of its sibling, the iPhone 3G.

To be sure, the lower prices make the Touch a more attractive purchase than before, coming in at $229 for 8GB (previously $299), $299 for 16GB, and $399 for 32GB (down from $499). The prices are more in line with what Apple and AT&T charge for the iPhone 3G: $199 for 8GB, and $299 for 16GB. (You don't have to pay a monthly fee to use the Touch, though.) While the amount is still more than what you might pay for competing media players, you get more with the Touch, too.

Let's begin with what stays the same. This version of the Touch continues to share many characteristics with the first-generation Touch and with the iPhone 3G. All have a bright, gorgeous, 3.5-inch, wide-screen multitouch display with 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch. All have 802.11b/g wireless support. And all sport the same operating system software that allows for easy navigation, a host of useful apps (Safari Web browser, calendar, e-mail, contacts, Google Maps, YouTube, weather, clock with multiple alarms and stopwatch, ordinary and scientific calculators, and notepad), and the ability to expand your device through Apple's App Store.

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With its latest iteration of the iPod Touch, Apple has added two highly coveted features--external volume controls and a speaker--and lowered prices, too. However, the Touch's physical changes are incremental, and they don't bring the device up to the level of its sibling, the iPhone 3G.

To be sure, the lower prices make the Touch a more attractive purchase than before, coming in at $229 for 8GB (previously $299), $299 for 16GB, and $399 for 32GB (down from $499). The prices are more in line with what Apple and AT&T charge for the iPhone 3G: $199 for 8GB, and $299 for 16GB. (You don't have to pay a monthly fee to use the Touch, though.) While the amount is still more than what you might pay for competing media players, you get more with the Touch, too.

Let's begin with what stays the same. This version of the Touch continues to share many characteristics with the first-generation Touch and with the iPhone 3G. All have a bright, gorgeous, 3.5-inch, wide-screen multitouch display with 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch. All have 802.11b/g wireless support. And all sport the same operating system software that allows for easy navigation, a host of useful apps (Safari Web browser, calendar, e-mail, contacts, Google Maps, YouTube, weather, clock with multiple alarms and stopwatch, ordinary and scientific calculators, and notepad), and the ability to expand your device through Apple's App Store.

Playing music remains a breeze. Press the home button below the display to activate the screen, and then select Music from the dedicated buttons along the bottom of the screen. In vertical view, the music's cover art dominates the display; orient the player horizontally, and it switches to Cover Flow view, which lets you page through the cover art as if you were viewing a flip book.

In addition to easily setting playlists on the fly, you can now use the new Genius autoplaylist creation feature directly from the Touch. First you must enable this feature on iTunes 8; but once enabled, it makes creating a playlist from songs in your music library a snap. Genius won't work for every song--for example, if the song is not on iTunes' radar, or it lacks complete ID3 tags--but the feature is certainly a convenient, almost category-focused addition to the iPod Touch's repertoire.

Audio sounds adequate through the included earbuds, but you may want to consider upgrading, either to Apple's forthcoming, step-up $80 earphones or to a high-quality pair from a third-party vendor. The earphone jack remains at the bottom of the Touch, just as on the first-gen model; that's in contrast, oddly enough, to the iPhone 3G, which places the jack at the upper left of the unit.

You have good reason to upgrade your headphones: According to our tests, the second-generation iPod Touch improves its audio output dramatically, jumping up a notch to receive a rating of Superior on the PC World Test Center's suite of audio tests. The Touch, together with its new Nano sibling, are our new leaders in our audio output results.

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