Apple announced its new product yesterday, iPod touch. This is the first time I felt like I finally found a replacement for my TH-55. I just saw the news on
The Spiegel and checked the specification on
Apple site. There are many similarity to TH-55 that I like and more...
iPod touch (from Apple site)
iPhone and iPod touch (from der Spiegel site)
Pros:
- 480x320 resolution (as TH-55)
- Wi-Fi b/g
- MP4 video up to 2.5Mbps, 640x480, 30fps
- Browser (I'm tired of NetFront)
- Unicode support
- The look! Really slim and still hand-sized
- Announced price is $299 for 8GB and $399 for 16GB
- It's Apple! (Music/picture software, integration with iTunes and etc)
Cons:
- No memory card slot (though 8GB is ok for me so far)
- No camera (I still have my phone camera though)
- No Bluetooth (Now, that's a pain xxx)
- No navigation software (that I know of, plus my GPS receiver is Bluetooth, so it's hopeless anyway)
- Not so many 3rd party software (= not so many games, can't check my train timetable offline and etc.)
- Battery lifetime is about the same as TH-55, 22hr audio, 5hr video, despite its 4 years advancement
- And battery is not self replaceable (warranty void if you open it): same as TH-55 but I think it's quite easy to change it myself once I have the damned Y-shape screw driver. You can see on YouTube
How to change iPod battery. It doesn't look so difficult as well. I hope iPod touch would be as easy as that.
- It's Apple! (not so many 3rd party software)
Questions?!?!:
- Can iPhone play AVI file? I know it supports mp4 and m4v format and you can easily change the container format from avi to mp4 or m4v but there are so many weird video/audio coding nowadays, let alone popular ones like DivX and XviD. What about Indeo, Cinepak, 3ivX and etc.? I can play most of them with WinVLC on Windows and TCPMP on TH-55 but some friends said that they couldn't play some files on Mac with QuickTime. So I wonder if I can play those on iPhone. I think iPod touch uses the same video software as iPhone. I would hate to convert all my video files for iPod. I'm using Laptop and my CPU fan scream so loud and it's hot to the point I was afraid it would melt when I use 100% CPU for a while.
- Is there any 'good' dictionary software on iPhone? I have MSDict with Oxford dictionaries right now.
- How about personal finance software? I'm using Splash Money on TH-55 and quite satisfy with it.
Writing to this line, I really doubt if I'll change but it's nice to see something that comes close to TH-55. I love my TH-55 but sometimes it's quite sad to see how PalmOS became less and less popular. Only usable Navigation software right now is TomTom and many new software are not for Palm devices anymore. TH-55 processor was quite neat when TH-55 came out but I really wish it was fast enough to play (big) video file without frame skip. NetFront is nothing compare to browsers on newer PDAs. Last but not least, Unicode support. I'm Thai, living in Germany but I can't use both languages at a time. If I enable Thai software, all the ä, ö, ü, ß would turn to a Thai characters. If I don't, Thai characters would turn to some strange roman characters or symbols.
I guess you know what I meant...
Ruangwit J.