Image by Nelson Wu via Flickr

A number of years ago I bought the first generation iPod. I was excited by the hype and looked forward to having a decent MP3 player. For me, unfortunately, it just didn’t deliver. The control wheel was fiddly and if, like me, you have fingers like sausages it was near impossible to control. The whole experience left me apathetic toward Apple and their products.

I spent a number of years in the musical wilderness using a Sony MP3 player. It wasn’t bad but then again it wasn’t great either. Sony had their own proprietary file format at the time so it made maintaining my music collection a bit of a pain in the arse. I am essentially lazy and one thing I cannot abide is things being a faff.

About six months ago I decided to give iTunes another go. Things had moved on a lot in my absence and the software impressed me with it’s ease of use. Quickly it became a favourite and my catalogue of MP3s eventually found themselves a new home.

After much umming and ahhing about it I decided I would risk a new MP3 player. I was using iTunes so an iPod seemed the logical choice. this is were I hit my first snag. So many fuckin flavours. Classic, Touch, Nano, Shuffle. So many colours. Sizes a plenty. What is a boy to do?

I went back to the drawing board and tried to put together a list of criteria. What did I actually need my MP3 player for.

• Music – Well Duh! no brainer there. Thinking about it however I did realise that my collection actually wasn’t that big. To be honest I haven’t but any new music for a long time as my musically tastes are firmly rooted in the past.
• Additional Tech – Did I need to be able to watch video? Maybe. Did I need access to the web? There was a good chance!

It quickly became evident that a second gen 8GB iPod Touch would do the business.

I’ve had it for just over a week and I have to say I am impressed. The MP3 functions work seamlessly with iTunes. The web browser and apps available from the app store are all good.

Now I’m not gonna get evangelical about Apple. Like I said I was burnt in the past but so far so good. I like the Touch because it just works. I delivers and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Knowing me in six months there will be something else that seems more appealing but for the moment I’ll enjoy my new toy. I will have to try and stop playing with it every five minutes cause there is a good chance I could end up going blind.

Cheerio from deep within gadget nirvana

Cheesecake Away!