Apple launched the fifth-gen iPod Touch at last week’s iPhone 5
unveiling conference, to all intents and purposes an iPhone 5 sans
telephonic functionality.
New iPod Touch too will feature that 4-inch 1136 x
640 elongated Retina display, and without the need for all that LTE
power draw and smartphone innards it comes in at a slender 6.1mm thick,
and weighs a trifling 88 grams. The aluminum back plate has bitten the
dust – making for a squarer profile, closer to the side-view of its
all-conquering big brother. Offered in black, silver, yellow, pink or
blue, only the black version has a matching bezel, with the other
colored iPods making do with a white one.
Internally, the 1GHz A4 CPU of the old version is superseded by a
dual-core A5 CPU – the same one found in the last version of the iPad
(iteration 2.4) – it’s basically a pair of A9 cores with a PowerVR
SGX543MP2 on-board graphical chip looking after the pixel-painting – a
premium set of components in other words.
Camera of New iPod Touch has also been smartened up,
in the same vein of the iPhone 5′s cam, more scratch-resistant lens,
some sort of sapphire crystal layer to thank for that. Panorama mode
courtesy of simply swishing the device through the air is also here, as
is face recognition, swipe to focus, support for iPhoto and iMovie.
Shoot 1080p footage with the rear camera, assisted by motion
detection…the new iPod Touch is no poor relation of the iPhone, it’s
simply the non-cellular sibling, and it’s a fantastic update. I reckon
users are gonna love that elongated aspect ratio – an extra row of
homescreen icons but more importantly, the unchanged width of the device
means it’s still a one-handed device – thumb-swipes ahoy.
And for a device without 3G/LTE and whatnot connectivity, that extra
mobile-friendliness will give the iPod the edge over any other WiFi
device – when was the last time you saw anyone using a 4.3-inch device
with a typical height-to-width ratio with just one hand? Standing on the
subway? Walking along? That new Lightning connector might irk a few
iPod fans; peripherals will need updating, and the port layout has been
reworked, but the boost to performance and usability make this an
upgrade worth saving for; battery life has been improved to 40 hours of
tune-time, or 8 hours of video. 32GB version $299, 64GB $399, shipping
in October.
To put things in perspective check out this chart comparing iPhone 5 iPhone 4s iPod Touch 4G and iPod Touch 5G:
