What are the pros and cons of an iPod Touch?

As a PDA, I have no complaints.

Pros:
-Easy to navigate through menus and such. Touch screen is ULTRA responsive
-App store. Lots of great apps, but also a lot of poor ones. Hit and miss.
-Design. Although a bit thin for my tastes, Apple does put out a fine working product.
Entertaining. There are several addictive games, wifi access, music, and video. These all add up to a great little gadget it your pocket.

Cons:
-Small space. I have a lot of music, so I cannot stand having something that I must slim down my library for.
-Easy to scratch the back (not that big of a deal, but I resell a lot of things and try to keep them in nice shape, meaning a case needs to be purchased to protect)
-Thin. My hands have trouble holding it, as it is a little to thin for my personal tastes.

All in all, I’d make the recommendation to get one, if the amount of space isn’t too big of a deal.

Pros
Like an iphone only cheaper.

Cons
No phone

@Lightlyseared I have the iPhone, guess I should have mentioned that!

I love my ipod touch… I used to use it for games and as a calendar but don’t want to waste the space.

It is easy to use and put music onto, but the storage capacity is small, I bought the middle one, not the largest. I have owned a lot of regular ipods in the past and have had bad luck with them dying suddenly and not working again… i’ve had this ipod for a year and a half and it seems to be fine (knock on wood). It is easily scratched but you can get an inexpensive silicone case to prevent that (and I high recommend a clear screen protector). It is also very slender and fits easily in my pocket which is the best.

I love mine. All the apps are great. I love being able to store all my music and movies that I like on it. I use it to record songs and music too with the Voice recorder “Memo” app thats preinstalled. Then I email the songs to myself. Really handy for looking up stuff online around the house without having to go on the computer or laptop. I downloaded a pdf viewer too so I can keep all of my timetables for college and work in my pocket. The volume control and pause/play funtion inline on the headphones is a great feature, makes it very handy for when you are walking etc.

The cons would be that the microphone is built into the headphones rather than the actual device. Using the wifi can sometimes be a real hog on battery life.

I’m happy with my 32GB IPod Touch. It’s better in almost every way than the 30GB hard drive model it replaced. Battery life is longer, it does aps, it has an internet browser via Wi-Fi… Just a couple of small complaints:
– They moved the headphone jack next to the power/USB connection, so now I have to pull out the headphone plug in order to pull out the USB connection.
– It won’t charge on a number of cradle devices that worked fine with older IPods.
If you get one, you need a couple of accessories for it from day 1, including the clear film screen protector, and the snap-on protective back, plus the standard Apple earphones are still awful; I find SkullCandy earphones much better for sound, isolation and comfort.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0014JI7OM/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?ie=UTF8&cloe_id=e0395a94-7f30-4bc1-bb4d-a0d5202e96d4&attrMsgId=LPWidget-A2&pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000WAY1PI&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=08WP410DMDRM7E0PV1J5

For headphones, I use these… they come in black and are on sale now, I LOVE them.

no GPS. not waterproof. new model coming out around the end of August.

pros: its nice and handy, seeing that I have a 64GB one it fits almost everything.
cons: once it’s wet it dies…
but other than that, everything else is awesome

There is also the possibility of getting her a 3G iPhone because the price has dropped to only $99.

This makes it actually cheaper than the Touch and this price only lasts until they’re out of stock.

And the iPhone with a case on it is thick enough to be comfortable.

Pros, its cool.
Cons, needs some work before buying.

That $99 iPhone is only 8gb. I think 32Gb is minimum to be useful.

I love my iPod touch. The touch screen is super responsive and it is loaded with features! I love that it has an App store and that there are plenty of free apps. Only con I have found is that it does scratch easy.

@CupcakesandTea you simply MUST get the clear film screen protector! It’s cheap, it’s very clear and it protects very well against scratches.
http://www.meritline.com/itouch-screen-protector-020---p-27712.aspx

Thank you guys! These answers have been extremely useful. My mom is very reticent about getting an iphone though. I think she’s going as much for the huge amount of storage space. She’s talking about putting books on cd on it so that she can listen to them on a plane.

The pros are pretty obvious but I can think of a couple of cons that I haven’t seen mentioned.

1) Apple reserves the right to delete anything off of it at any time. That could be an app that you bought that they had a squabble with the developer over, pictures, songs, videos… basically anything on there. While it is unlikely that they will delete anything other than apps, there is precedence.

2) No micro-SD slot for storage expansion

3) There are other possibly better things on the horizon, like the Dell Streak and a new generation of Android-powered smartphones. I don’t know about pricing, but I know that some of them are due out.. well, some of them later this week.

@MarthaStewart I agree that 8GB isn’ tnearly enough and that you need some sort of protection to keep the screen scratch-free, but I think that the Gorilla Glass™ on the Dell Streak has those films beat. Watch this !

@MS

You’re absolutely right about the screen protector as well as a case.

When I got my iPhone the rep I had was so conscientious about my not leaving the store with a naked iPhone.

He recommended a case which included the glass protection and it was only $20 and returnable so I agreed. He himself spent quite a bit of time struggling to get it on perfectly aligned. I’m so glad for that.

I hated the rest of the case cuz it was too soft and picked up every bit of dust and cat hair so I returned it and got a different type.

But that cling film-type of plastic on the front is still going strong two years later. It’s so nice to know that any little scratches are in the plastic rather than the glass. And they will peel off right along with that plastic when I’m ready to sell it in perfect condition.

@Katawa

Make sure to do the same for your mom. Maybe get a case with protection for both sides before purchase and ask the friendly Apple store employee for help putting it on. That cling plastic for the glass can be a real bitch to align properly but so necessary. It’s worse than trying to use contact paper inside drawers :) but definitely worth it.

I’ve also seen a more permanent clear-coating solution, some sort of urethane IIRC. I’ve seen it mostly at kiosks in malls, but it seems to work; I’ve had people who don’t even work there swear by it. It’s totally invisible (unlike those films) and really can take being thrown in a pants pocket with your car keys and come out without a scratch.