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| Apple iPod touch 2G |
Video » Gallery » |
 The iPod touch used to be the second fiddle device to the iPhone. It looked like an iPhone, only a bit goofier, like it was made with leftover parts. With the new generation, however, Apple has staked a new flag in the sand and declared the Apple iPod touch 2G it's own distinct device, with its own benefits and shortcomings. Foremost among these, the new iPod touch 2G is maniacally thin, much thinner than the Apple iPhone 3G. The entire body seems more polished, with a more definite sharpness and steep curve to the edges. It's taken the new iPod nano aesthetic to the larger touchscreen form.
Best of all, it does almost everything the iPhone 3G can do. There's no cellular radio and no GPS sensor, no Bluetooth for handsfree, but that's about it. Most of the games and apps, and all of the e-mail and productivity tools work great on the iPod touch 2G, and because you're relying on Wi-Fi for browsing, it feels even faster than its cellular cousin. The iPod touch looks great playing movies, and handles just as smoothly as the iPhone does on its best days.
For folks who crave the iPhone experience but don't need the actual phone part, the iPod touch is a compelling solution. There are obvious drawbacks, including the lack of stereo Bluetooth, and we'd always like to see more storage. Larger mobile internet devices, like the newer devices from Archos, have Web browsers that can handle flash videos, and most similar PMPs can pair with a cell phone through Bluetooth to help with call handling while your tunes are blasting. It's probably why Apple doesn't want to confuse things by including these features on the iPod touch, though it is clear that Apple wants to distinguish this device by including unique features, so the iPod touch 2G gets Nike+ iPod support, without the iPod nano's need for a dongle to use the jogging app.
We're glad to see Apple distinguish the iPod touch from the iPhone in a few ways, and we'd like to see them go farther, without splitting the system in two. But we think there are unique hardware opportunities for this device, and we definitely see an audience in folks who, for various reasons, are resisting an iPhone purchase. Release: September 2008. Price: $230.
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| Apple iPod classic 120GB |
Video » Gallery » |
 The Apple iPod classic 120GB has become a political statement more than a music playing device. It's for users who won't give up the idea of taking their entire library, or a few good months worth of music at least, every where they go. It's the only iPod left with serious capacity, as the iPod touch is only creeping its way upwards in storage incrementally. But Apple also needs to distinguish the iPod classic, at it's expensive price point, from the iPhone's and touch devices at the same price. So, the iPod classic gets a price cut, or a capacity cut, depending on how you look at it. Either the former iPod classic 80GB just got better, or the 160GB iPod just went the way of the Dodo bird. We're sure purists will be up in arms, and futurists will wonder when the 320GB iPod, or iPods with storage that we measure in terms of Terabytes, will make their eventual appearance. At the very least, be pleased that the new iPod classic gets access to the same Genius playlist features as the iPod nano, so if that Genius idea really takes off, the new class of 120GB users won't be left out in the cold. Release: September 2008. Price: $250.
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| Apple iPod nano 4G |
Video » Gallery » |
 We won't miss the older, square, postage stamp-shaped iPod nano 3G; we definitely welcome the return to Nano form in the new Apple iPod nano 4G. This iPod nano is sharp, almost in a literal way, the edges are so tapered and tightly constructed. We're not huge fans of video on the iPod nano, the screen is a bit small for our taste, but this new Nano has a rich screen with a good contrast level. Better to show off the improved iPod UI, which seems to get some incremental bit of polish with every new iPod release. Apple is clearly keeping competitors in mind with an interface that now divides the screen between menu choices and album artwork or photo galleries.
We won't dote over the new colors, except to say that in person, the iPods are much more vibrant and sparkling than they appear in advertisements. The new iPod nano 4G also gets an accelerometer, which is put to short use in activating Apple's Cover Flow interface. Cover Flow looks great, but it isn't the most functional interface, and we've had trouble recently getting iTunes to import our album artwork from MP3 files, so Cover Flow only reminds us of our trouble. Perhaps more interesting will be the new music recommendation Genius feature, which recommends music based on the libraries of other folks with similar taste. Release: September 2008. Price: $150.
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| LG Invision |
Specs » Gallery » |
 LG and Samsung seem to be trading design ideas these days. While Samsung has borrowed the design for LG's Rumor QWERTY phone, the LG Invision keeps things boxy and simple on AT&T's MediaFLO TV service, just like the Samsung Access. It is the smallest MediaFLO phone on the market, but it still requires some extra bulk for the TV hardware, so it isn't a tiny or super-slim phone. Unfortunately, we saw the phone in San Francisco, where AT&T doesn't have broadcast service available, which probably says something about the state of mobile TV in the U.S. In any case, the phone keeps it simple, with a basic AT&T interface and a large, dominating d-pad style navigation button. Release: October 2008. Price: $150.
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| Motorola ROKR EM30 |
Specs » Gallery » |
 The Motorola ROKR EM30 is a baby cousin for the Motorola ROKR E8, and the family resemblance is easy to see. The mode-shifting keypad is there, which shifts from a cool blue set of numeric keys for dialing to a bright red set of music keys for media playback. From there, the ROKR EM30 eschews some of the gimmicks we didn't love on the ROKR E8. The touch sensitive scroll wheel is gone, replaced by a standard 4-way button, and the haptic feedback has been replaced by real buttons, which is an improvement in our books. Otherwise, in person the ROKR EM30 looks and feels very much like the ROKR E8. It's a fairly thick slab phone, about the thickness of Motorola's Q9 devices, if not more thick. We would have liked to see some more improvements in the interface design, especially considering this phone hasn't yet been tied down to any carriers with restrictive requirements, but instead the EM30 gets a fairly plain-looking interface, with a basic media player. Pricing and availability have yet to be announced, but we suspect this won't make its way to our shores anytime soon, unless T-Mobile really loved the original enough to offer a bargain model. Release: September 2008. Price: $250.
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