Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When Steve Jobs unveiled the Ipod Touch 4g, he referred to it as the "Iphone without a phone", and then enthusiastically pointed out the amazing features that were carried over from the Iphone 4 to the Ipod Touch 4g...the amazing retina display, front and rear facing cameras, A4 processor chip, and Facetime. So I thought, "WOW", my wife has an Iphone 4, and the Ipod Touch 4g is a truly remarkable device with Facetime and Iphone 4 functionality. I'm using a HTC EVO 4G Android Phone (Sprint) and can tether the Ipod Touch 4g wirelessly to my phone. The promise of being able to see my wife more often led me to order the Ipod Touch 4g. After comparing the Ipod Touch 4g to my wife's Iphone 4, i am extremely disappointed. First, the rear camera in Iphone 4's pictures, when printed in 4x6 format on an Epson Artisan 810 Wireless Touchscreen Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer (C11CA52201) are just plain beautiful. The Ipod Touch 4g prints at 4x6 on the same printer look like a pixelated mess. There are over 2,500 photography related Apple apps. One would think Apple would have included a better camera given the importance of photography. Why is there a seriously lacking.7 megapixels? What is the point of making the device thin when you have to carry along a separate camera. When using the Barcode app to read barcodes using the Ipod's low-res camera, the barcodes didn't even register. The retina display was seriously lacking as well. Apple included an inferior retina display! It's not the same retina display used in my wife's Iphone 4. With the settings turned all the way up on both devices. The brightness and the contrast of the Ipod's retina display were lower than that of the Iphone. This is a very noticeable difference. Even the colors seemed muted on the Ipod. The sharpness was the same on both displays. What got me really upset was the maximum viewing angle of the Ipod's retina display. My wife could hold her Iphone 4 on her lap sitting a couple feet away and show me clear photos. With the Ipod's retina display, you can't view pictures at the same angle, you need to be closer. I don't see how anyone could use this inferior retina display as an e-reader, you are better off using a Kindle 3G Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6" Display, Graphite, 3G Works Globally - Latest Generation as an e-reader. I then tried to use Google maps on the Ipod, and to my dismay, this Iphone without a phone is also and Iphone without a GPS! Wow, seriously what is the point of using Google maps on this device, when you have to manually figure out where you are and input the coordinates yourself. Google maps is near worthless on this device unless you are near a wi-fi signal, and even then it only gives you a large circle to point out where you may be. And don't even hope for this device to tell you in what direction you are going, because it's also an Iphone without a compass. The sound coming from the speakers on the back of the Ipod is just plain horrible. An mp3 played through these speakers sound as if you were listening to a clock radio from the 80's through a pair of tin cans connected to a string. The speakers on the Iphone 4 are much better. Apps also load much slower on the Ipod than they do on the Iphone 4, the Ipod is also an Iphone 4 without half of its ram. It took about 1/3 longer to load applications and loading or reloading webpages is much slower on the Ipod. Maybe it's because the Ipod has only 256mb of ram compared to the Iphone 4's 512mb of ram. Which also could explain why Facetime sessions with my Ipod Touch and my wife's Iphone 4 seemed like an utter mess. Even with a strong 802.11n signal to connect the devices, the video stuttered and the frame rates seemed very low. Also the microphone on the Ipod seems very week, so much so that my wife had a difficult time hearing me on her end. Facetime sessions between 2 Iphone 4's are superior to sessions with a connected Ipod Touch 4g. The interface on the Ipod Touch 4g is also different from previous generations, so plan on buying all new accessories to go with this. Overall i'm very disappointed. The promise of getting an Iphone 4 like device without the phone was never realized. In the future when Apple releases a product. I'll never be an early adopter.