The iPod Touch is a great product with lots to offer, but its premium price tag and limited capacity should give some shoppers pause. Don't assume that Apple's most expensive iPod is the best solution for your needs. If you're planning on watching a lot of video, high-capacity products like the iPod Classic or Archos 605 WiFi will allow you to load entire seasons of your favorite TV shows

Design
For better or worse, the iPod Touch is clearly the iPhone's baby brother. Like most products that roll out of Apple, the Touch shows the love of committed designers, hardware engineers, and usability experts. The Touch measures a slim and pocketable 4.3 inches by 2.4 inches by 0.31 inch, with an all-metal-and-glass design that feels as expensive as it looks. Because nothing will ruin a portable video player faster than a gouge across its screen

It's no surprise that Apple has been on a screaming rampage of success with its gorgeous, high tech products these last few years. Every new release seems to cast a heavy shadow over its predecessor. This is certainly the case with the new iPod touch. The improvements over earlier designs - bigger, better LCD, touch screen controls, thinner frame, Wi-Fi access, etc. - are dramatic leaps forward, not only for the iPod itself but for future Apple products. The 16GB iPod touch, selling for $399 USD ($299 USD for the 8GB version), has all the signs of a permanent, monumental success. Read our review and check out our video to find out why you'll want this multi-function media player in your arsenal of tech.

As with other iPods, the touch lacks a user-replaceable battery, a memory expansion port, and stereo Bluetooth (a shame in such a mediacentric device), but with such an artful design and excellent performance, those are forgivable flaws. The iPod touch is the premier convergence device.And if you are making that choice, iPhone clearly wins out – it’s still got that neat interface, plus a whole variety of text- and phone-specific functions. It’s a superb phone that happens to double up as a slimline, pocket-sized media player, with the sort of memory one would expect from a product that size.”

“Pros: Beautiful and intuitive interface; iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store is fleet over fast Wi-Fi and very convenient; web browsing and YouTube video on an iPod; extra applications useful.

Cons: Darkly lit video and photos lack detail; no external volume controls or support for remote control; incompatible with old video accessories; no calendar event editing.”

Great, but isn't £279 a lot of cash to spend on a 16GB media player? Wouldn't you be better off with an iPod Classic? Well, there's not much in terms of raw specifications to distinguish it from the rest of the iPod range. You get the usual limited range of music file format support - just AAC, Apple Lossless and MP3 for music and H.264 and MPEG4 files for video. There's no FLAC, Ogg Vorbis or WMA support, nor any for DivX or WMV, MPEG1 or 2. Although very beautifully designed and fantastically thin at just 8mm, its pocket footprint is actually a little larger than a standard iPod, measuring 62mm wide by 110mm tall. And battery life is nothing to write home about either, weighing in at up to 22 hours for audio and a par-score five hours for video.