iPod touch hands on impressions and prices

“Touch me not!” said the iPod touch, as the mad crowd made their way to the front, manhandling Apple’s wafer thin iPod.

The official prices of the new Apple iPod line was announced today for the Philippine market. Though the iPod shuffle, iPod nano and iPod classic have been spotted in several Apple retailers, there is still no suggested retail price for consumers to use to compare across stores. The photo above illustrates the SRP for the new line of iPods:

iPod shuffle P5,090.00
iPod nano 4GB P9,090.00
iPod nano 8GB P12,390.00
iPod 80GB P15,790.00
iPod 160GB P22,090.00
iPod touch 8GB P19,090.00
iPod touch 16GB P25,490.00

The show stealer was of course the iPod touch which will be available in the Philippines in October 2007. I counted two units for today’s demonstration and here are my impressions and comments:

• the iPod touch is almost wafer thin – a little scary to place in your back pants pocket
• you cannot use a Bluetooth headset with this device in the same way that you cannot use a Bluetooth headset with the iPhone to listen to music
• you can add and sync contacts to your Address Book application but you cannot add iCal events through the iPod touch. The device is not meant to be a PDA.
• the Starbucks WiFi store is not applicable here in the Philippines
• you can download free podcasts from the iTunes Store – that’s the most we can do since we don’t have a local version

One observation I have with regards to the photo above is the huge blank void in the menu screen. It seems that the iPod touch will also make use of 3rd party applications in the same way the iPhone has but Apple commented that this is all they have to offer.

So which iPod is right for you? After getting to try out the touch and the new nano, I feel that I must go for the third generation of the nano, not because the iPod touch is an inferior product but more because the former seems to hold a sweet spot in my choice for a flash player which is compatible with the Nike Sports Kit. I find that the nano provides more utility and is more robust in terms of features that I need. The iPod touch offers an insane amount of eye candy and WiFi web surfing, but I’m finding the price a little expensive.