Apple iPod Touch 4th Gen Review
The iPod Touch 4th Generation is a touch screen portable music player manufactured by Apple Products. But this device is not only for listening to your favorite tunes. It is essentially a "phoneless" iPhone 4 due to the fact that it lacks any calling or data function. Nevertheless, the 4th Gen iPod Touch has many smart phone-like features, such as a bright 3.5 inch touch screen display, application support, and Apple's premier operating system, iOS. But the iPod Touch 4th Gen was released four years ago, therefore it's becoming extremely outdated and long in the tooth. So is the 4th Generation of Apple's iPod Touch a good device and is it still worth picking up today when there are so many alternatives out there? Let's see in MobileTechology Review's full written review of the iPod Touch 4th Generation!
Hardware:
The iPod Touch has very small dimensions, relative to the compatible music players and smart phones of today. The iPod Touch measures in a just 7.2mm thick, 111mm tall, and 58.9mm wide. It is also a pretty lightweight device, at only 3.6oz. As for the iPod Touch's design, it looks very nice and stylish. It's constructed primarily out of polished aluminum and glass. This makes for a good looking device as well as great build quality. Speaking of build quality, the 4th Gen iPod Touch feels extraordinarily solid, which is to be expected of Apple devices. The metal frame makes the music player seem strong and it will undoubtedly hold up to a few good drops. But the great build quality and aesthetic design come at a price: in hand feel. When you grasp the iPod in your hands, it just isn't very comfortable. The thin body and sharp, tapered edges make holding the Touch in your hand for any length of time an overall unpleasant experience. Taking a step away from design, let's look around the device. On the left side of the player there is the two button volume rocker and there is absolutely nothing to speak of on the right side of the device. The top edge of the iPod is home to the power button, while the bottom houses the 3.5mm audio port, the 30-pin dock connector, and the small, mono speaker. There is a 0.7MP camera lens and the Apple/iPod logo on the back of the iPod. On the front there is the 3.5 inch display, a VGA front-facing camera lens, and the home button. Both the power button and volume rocker have decent tactile response, but they feel a little too mushy and they are far too small. Alright, now lets talk screen. The iPod Touch 4th Generation packs a 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 960x640 (326 ppi). The panel is an IPS LCD with pretty good viewing angles and takes advantage of Apple's Retina Display technology. Since the pixel density is over 300, it is nearly impossible to distinguish individual pixels, which makes for a very sharp and clear display. Colors on the screen are generally very accurate and it achieves quite amazing brightness levels. The screen is constructed out of glass, as to be expected, and feels nice to the touch. All in all, the iPod's display is very good and will satisfy the needs of most people. But with the extremely high resolution smart phone displays out there today (LG G3- 2K), the small, relatively low resolution display on the iPod Touch seems to be getting pretty outdated. With the screen out of the way we can move onto the guts, the specifications of the iPod Touch 4th Gen. The device is powered by the Apple A4 chip, an 800MHz single-core processor which is coupled with 256MB of RAM. The processor and RAM is another area where it becomes obvious that the iPod is definitely a four year old device. The processor is extremely slow and can barely catch up with the demands the operation system and user put on it. Expect every task to take longer on the iPod. 256MB of RAM is a joke by today's standards and it makes multitasking on the iPod Touch very difficult. As for storage options available for Apple's 4th Gen iPod Touch, you can get it with either 8, 32, or 64GB of internal storage. This internal storage cannot be augmented by a micro-SD card, which is typical of Apple. Pricing for the device goes up the more storage you choose. The iPod has a 930mah battery, which is rated at up to 40 hours of music playback and 7 hours of video playback. This device is mainly advertised as a music player, so the 40 hours of playback claimed by Apple with satisfy the heavy music listeners out there. But if you aren't going to be listening to music, be prepared to charge the device as the battery won't last long when browsing the web, using the camera, etc. As most people will be listening to music on the iPod, you'll be glad to know the sound quality through the 3.5mm audio jack is great. But what isn't great is the mono speaker. It has awful sound quality, sounds tinny, and is very quiet. So I would suggest listening through headphones rather than the speaker.
What's in the box:
- iPod Touch 4th Generation
- USB Charging Cable
- Earphones
- Owner's Manual/ Quick Start Guide
- Apple Stickers
Software:
NOTE: My review model of the iPod Touch is running iOS 6.1.6, so this review will be discussing that version of iOS. The iPod Touch 4th Generation runs Apple's very own operating system, iOS. When the iPod Touch was launched in 2010, it ran iOS 4.1, but in the past four years it has received many OS updates. Currently, the iPod runs iOS 6.1.6, which is the newest version of iOS supported by the iPod Touch 4th Gen as the device's hardware is not powerful enough to tackle iOS 7. iOS in itself is a very simplistic smart phone operating system. It has an exceedingly shallow learning curve and is easy to understand, but due to this, it doesn't contain a ton of features. When you first boot up the iPod, you are brought to the lock screen. This screen consists of the time, date, unlock slider, and shortcut to the camera application. Once you slide the unlock slider to the right and put in your password/PIN (if you have one), you are now on the device's home screen. The home screen contains a 4x4 grid of the applications you currently have installed on your music player. Once you install more applications, pages to house those apps will be created to the right of your home screen. Below the 4x4 grid, you have a dock that houses the applications that you use most. The left-most screen on iOS is reserved for the spotlight search function. This screen allows you to search your entire device for anything, including applications, music, and even the internet. It is a fairly nice function, but it probably doesn't need it's own screen. Ok, time to talk about some of the included applications offered on the iPod Touch 4th Gen. Of course, there are the obvious ones, such as Calendar, Notes, Clock, Reminders, Calculator, Contacts, Stocks, Voice Memos, among others. All of these applications are handy, but don't warrant being discussed in great detail as they are pretty standard fare. The iPod Touch also has both the iTunes and App Store applications, which allow you to gain access to the wide world of applications and music available from Apple. Safari, Apple's HTML browser, is included as well and provides a great browsing experience. Safari is pretty snappy, has a mostly pleasing user interface, and is generally a pleasant web browser to use. iOS contains a nice email client, which supports most popular services, such as Gmail. Apps like as Passbook, a hub for tickets and travel and Game Center, which keeps track of your scores on mobile games and allows you to compete with others, are both satisfactory. What isn't so satisfactory is Maps, which was once powered by Google but was revamped by Apple with the iOS 6 update. The user interface of the Maps application is poor, and most importantly, the turn-by-turn navigation feature works horribly. Overall, Apple should have left Google the job of designing their Maps app. Seeing as the iPod Touch lacks any cellular functionality, Apple thought it would be nice to include iMessage. iMessage utilizes WiFi to send messages to other iPhone or iPod Touch users. So at least you aren't completely stuck in the dark when it comes to communication on the device. If you are interested in taking advantage of the iPod Touch's cameras, then you'll be interested in the Camera, FaceTime, and Photos applications. The Camera app is well laid out and will be discussed more later in this review. As for FaceTime, which allows you to video chat with other Apple device users using the front-facing camera, the app is generally pretty enjoyable and the video chat is reliable. The Photos app is as simple as it gets, with a vertical list of camera albums and a grid of thumbnails within those albums. But finally, without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for. Let's talk about the music app. Since the iPod is to be used primarily as a music player, the Music app better be pretty damn good. And it is. Apple's music app is great, and blows competitors like Google Play Music out of the water. It is simplistic, easy to use, and has a decent amount of features. Although the iPod Touch 4th Generation's software is not packed with features, its simplicity will appeal to most people. But in the end, the iPod Touch's software just doesn't offer enough. It's getting a bit outdated and with the feature-packed Android operation system out there as well as the new iOS 7 OS, it seems difficult to see why you would choose the iPod Touch 4th Gen over it's competitors.
Camera:
The iPod Touch 4th Generation makes use of a 0.7MP rear camera and a VGA (0.3MP) front-facing camera. In all honesty, both cameras are unimpressive and are not very good. The photographs taken with the rear shooter are adequate, but won't blow your socks off in any way. They are pretty grainy and lack a good amount of detail. Photos taken at night are even worse and you must have a decent amount of light to get shots that are acceptable. On the bright side, color balance is quite accurate from the 0.7MP lens. The VGA front shooter is equally unimpressive, with decidedly low detail and color balance leaning towards the cool side. The front-facing camera is alright for video chats though, as it records decent video. The rear facing camera has even better video, shooting at 720p HD. Videos look sufficient and have a good quantity of detail. The camera application is well laid out, but it is basic and sparse. The virtual view-finder takes up most of the display, while a shutter button, slider to switch from stills to video, and a shortcut to your gallery are near the bottom of the screen. At the display's top you'll find an options button that lets you turn a virtual grid on and off as well as a button to switch from rear to front-facing cameras.
Conclusion:
The iPod Touch 4th Generation is reasonably nice device. As a glorified music player, the iPod Touch is great. It offers a great listening experience along with added smart device features. But as a smart device, the iPod Touch is not really that good. Both its hardware and software are outdated (by today's standards) and it's just not worth purchasing when you can get better devices that provide a similar experience, such as the iPod Touch 5th Generation or an Android device.
*It is always possible that some specifications or facts may be incorrect. We try our best at MobileTechnology Reviews to provide accurate information, but we occasionally make mistakes. If you notice that something is wrong or incorrect, shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll fix it!
Hardware:
The iPod Touch has very small dimensions, relative to the compatible music players and smart phones of today. The iPod Touch measures in a just 7.2mm thick, 111mm tall, and 58.9mm wide. It is also a pretty lightweight device, at only 3.6oz. As for the iPod Touch's design, it looks very nice and stylish. It's constructed primarily out of polished aluminum and glass. This makes for a good looking device as well as great build quality. Speaking of build quality, the 4th Gen iPod Touch feels extraordinarily solid, which is to be expected of Apple devices. The metal frame makes the music player seem strong and it will undoubtedly hold up to a few good drops. But the great build quality and aesthetic design come at a price: in hand feel. When you grasp the iPod in your hands, it just isn't very comfortable. The thin body and sharp, tapered edges make holding the Touch in your hand for any length of time an overall unpleasant experience. Taking a step away from design, let's look around the device. On the left side of the player there is the two button volume rocker and there is absolutely nothing to speak of on the right side of the device. The top edge of the iPod is home to the power button, while the bottom houses the 3.5mm audio port, the 30-pin dock connector, and the small, mono speaker. There is a 0.7MP camera lens and the Apple/iPod logo on the back of the iPod. On the front there is the 3.5 inch display, a VGA front-facing camera lens, and the home button. Both the power button and volume rocker have decent tactile response, but they feel a little too mushy and they are far too small. Alright, now lets talk screen. The iPod Touch 4th Generation packs a 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 960x640 (326 ppi). The panel is an IPS LCD with pretty good viewing angles and takes advantage of Apple's Retina Display technology. Since the pixel density is over 300, it is nearly impossible to distinguish individual pixels, which makes for a very sharp and clear display. Colors on the screen are generally very accurate and it achieves quite amazing brightness levels. The screen is constructed out of glass, as to be expected, and feels nice to the touch. All in all, the iPod's display is very good and will satisfy the needs of most people. But with the extremely high resolution smart phone displays out there today (LG G3- 2K), the small, relatively low resolution display on the iPod Touch seems to be getting pretty outdated. With the screen out of the way we can move onto the guts, the specifications of the iPod Touch 4th Gen. The device is powered by the Apple A4 chip, an 800MHz single-core processor which is coupled with 256MB of RAM. The processor and RAM is another area where it becomes obvious that the iPod is definitely a four year old device. The processor is extremely slow and can barely catch up with the demands the operation system and user put on it. Expect every task to take longer on the iPod. 256MB of RAM is a joke by today's standards and it makes multitasking on the iPod Touch very difficult. As for storage options available for Apple's 4th Gen iPod Touch, you can get it with either 8, 32, or 64GB of internal storage. This internal storage cannot be augmented by a micro-SD card, which is typical of Apple. Pricing for the device goes up the more storage you choose. The iPod has a 930mah battery, which is rated at up to 40 hours of music playback and 7 hours of video playback. This device is mainly advertised as a music player, so the 40 hours of playback claimed by Apple with satisfy the heavy music listeners out there. But if you aren't going to be listening to music, be prepared to charge the device as the battery won't last long when browsing the web, using the camera, etc. As most people will be listening to music on the iPod, you'll be glad to know the sound quality through the 3.5mm audio jack is great. But what isn't great is the mono speaker. It has awful sound quality, sounds tinny, and is very quiet. So I would suggest listening through headphones rather than the speaker.
What's in the box:
- iPod Touch 4th Generation
- USB Charging Cable
- Earphones
- Owner's Manual/ Quick Start Guide
- Apple Stickers
Software:
NOTE: My review model of the iPod Touch is running iOS 6.1.6, so this review will be discussing that version of iOS. The iPod Touch 4th Generation runs Apple's very own operating system, iOS. When the iPod Touch was launched in 2010, it ran iOS 4.1, but in the past four years it has received many OS updates. Currently, the iPod runs iOS 6.1.6, which is the newest version of iOS supported by the iPod Touch 4th Gen as the device's hardware is not powerful enough to tackle iOS 7. iOS in itself is a very simplistic smart phone operating system. It has an exceedingly shallow learning curve and is easy to understand, but due to this, it doesn't contain a ton of features. When you first boot up the iPod, you are brought to the lock screen. This screen consists of the time, date, unlock slider, and shortcut to the camera application. Once you slide the unlock slider to the right and put in your password/PIN (if you have one), you are now on the device's home screen. The home screen contains a 4x4 grid of the applications you currently have installed on your music player. Once you install more applications, pages to house those apps will be created to the right of your home screen. Below the 4x4 grid, you have a dock that houses the applications that you use most. The left-most screen on iOS is reserved for the spotlight search function. This screen allows you to search your entire device for anything, including applications, music, and even the internet. It is a fairly nice function, but it probably doesn't need it's own screen. Ok, time to talk about some of the included applications offered on the iPod Touch 4th Gen. Of course, there are the obvious ones, such as Calendar, Notes, Clock, Reminders, Calculator, Contacts, Stocks, Voice Memos, among others. All of these applications are handy, but don't warrant being discussed in great detail as they are pretty standard fare. The iPod Touch also has both the iTunes and App Store applications, which allow you to gain access to the wide world of applications and music available from Apple. Safari, Apple's HTML browser, is included as well and provides a great browsing experience. Safari is pretty snappy, has a mostly pleasing user interface, and is generally a pleasant web browser to use. iOS contains a nice email client, which supports most popular services, such as Gmail. Apps like as Passbook, a hub for tickets and travel and Game Center, which keeps track of your scores on mobile games and allows you to compete with others, are both satisfactory. What isn't so satisfactory is Maps, which was once powered by Google but was revamped by Apple with the iOS 6 update. The user interface of the Maps application is poor, and most importantly, the turn-by-turn navigation feature works horribly. Overall, Apple should have left Google the job of designing their Maps app. Seeing as the iPod Touch lacks any cellular functionality, Apple thought it would be nice to include iMessage. iMessage utilizes WiFi to send messages to other iPhone or iPod Touch users. So at least you aren't completely stuck in the dark when it comes to communication on the device. If you are interested in taking advantage of the iPod Touch's cameras, then you'll be interested in the Camera, FaceTime, and Photos applications. The Camera app is well laid out and will be discussed more later in this review. As for FaceTime, which allows you to video chat with other Apple device users using the front-facing camera, the app is generally pretty enjoyable and the video chat is reliable. The Photos app is as simple as it gets, with a vertical list of camera albums and a grid of thumbnails within those albums. But finally, without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for. Let's talk about the music app. Since the iPod is to be used primarily as a music player, the Music app better be pretty damn good. And it is. Apple's music app is great, and blows competitors like Google Play Music out of the water. It is simplistic, easy to use, and has a decent amount of features. Although the iPod Touch 4th Generation's software is not packed with features, its simplicity will appeal to most people. But in the end, the iPod Touch's software just doesn't offer enough. It's getting a bit outdated and with the feature-packed Android operation system out there as well as the new iOS 7 OS, it seems difficult to see why you would choose the iPod Touch 4th Gen over it's competitors.
Camera:
The iPod Touch 4th Generation makes use of a 0.7MP rear camera and a VGA (0.3MP) front-facing camera. In all honesty, both cameras are unimpressive and are not very good. The photographs taken with the rear shooter are adequate, but won't blow your socks off in any way. They are pretty grainy and lack a good amount of detail. Photos taken at night are even worse and you must have a decent amount of light to get shots that are acceptable. On the bright side, color balance is quite accurate from the 0.7MP lens. The VGA front shooter is equally unimpressive, with decidedly low detail and color balance leaning towards the cool side. The front-facing camera is alright for video chats though, as it records decent video. The rear facing camera has even better video, shooting at 720p HD. Videos look sufficient and have a good quantity of detail. The camera application is well laid out, but it is basic and sparse. The virtual view-finder takes up most of the display, while a shutter button, slider to switch from stills to video, and a shortcut to your gallery are near the bottom of the screen. At the display's top you'll find an options button that lets you turn a virtual grid on and off as well as a button to switch from rear to front-facing cameras.
Conclusion:
The iPod Touch 4th Generation is reasonably nice device. As a glorified music player, the iPod Touch is great. It offers a great listening experience along with added smart device features. But as a smart device, the iPod Touch is not really that good. Both its hardware and software are outdated (by today's standards) and it's just not worth purchasing when you can get better devices that provide a similar experience, such as the iPod Touch 5th Generation or an Android device.
*It is always possible that some specifications or facts may be incorrect. We try our best at MobileTechnology Reviews to provide accurate information, but we occasionally make mistakes. If you notice that something is wrong or incorrect, shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll fix it!
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