IPod touch second-generation (2G) review for everyone else: Is it a good organizational tool?

Pros: Beautiful screen Great sound Thin and lightweight Fun and entertaining Cons: WPA/WPA2 wifi encryption buggy Apple broke accessory connections on older accessories Doesn’t quite make it as a PIM/Organizer

Update/Editors note: As some have pointed out, you may find some typos in this review.  I was pressed for time so I used Dragon Naturallyspeaking to write the review.  Please read accordingly.

I was sad to see my iPod color go away. Someone broke into my car got away with my iPod and my phone charger. That iPod served me well over the past two or three years and someone decided that they needed it more than me.

So in the market for a new iPod as well is thinking down the road about programming for the iPhone, I decided that it was time to buy a new iPod anyway.

This past Saturday, I was doing some browsing on Amazon of the I thought touches. I saw that the new second generation touch models were available! I had no idea that they were releasing a new line of touches until I saw them on Amazon. And considering I had a nice $100 credit from Amazon (due to my wonderful readers who click my Amazon links) I decided it was high time that I go ahead and make the purchase.

Here are my initial observations on the iPod Touch as both an entertainment and organizer.  Read on to see how it measures up…

Set up – Unboxing the darn thing was a hassle.  It came taped inside plastic clear jewel case. It took me a second to figure out I was supposed to remove the nearly invisible tape because I couldn’t see it. Once the tape was removed, I had to unclamp it from the case.  I had to apply pressure to the box to end it in order for the touch to come out.

The device itself is a beautiful thing. It is thin and only 1/2″ thick or smaller. There was just enough charge to turn it on for the first time. The screen is amazing. The colors are vibrant, the graphics are beautiful.

WiFi — the iPod touch immediately recognized my home network. However when I try to connect for the first 10 times, it would not connect. It kept saying bad access code. After doing this repeatedly, I started questioning whether I did have the password wrong. But alas I did not. There appears to be some sort of bug in the system where you can enter at your WPA key correctly, however it will not connect on the first time. So what I have to do and I did this twice last night, is to hit connect when it fails it okay and then hit connect again. I do this until eventually it does connect. So if you find yourself in that situation just keep at it and it’ll eventually connect

Music – the iPod touch 2G. requires iTunes 8. I am running windows Vista home premium at home, so instead of risking a crash.  I decided that I would uninstall iTunes 7 completely and then download iTunes 8 and install it from scratch. This little workaround prevented iTunes 8 from crashing and did find all of my music.

When I docked the iPod touch immediately began sinking my whole collection which is about 12 GB worth of music and spoken word. The first sync did not go well. Eventually iTunes 8 froze at about 130 songs in.

Compared to the iPod color when iTunes would freeze, there seemed to be no way to disconnect it from the link cable without having to reboot my computer. The iPod touch seems to fix that with an option where you can slide the slider and stop the synchronization. This prevented any data loss and iTunes detected the error and returned to its normal operation. The next synch got all the music.

Sound quality — The music sounds great. Which is one of the main reasons for owning an iPod right? Compared to my old iPod color, the touch sounds better. The iPod color had a problem with high frequency songs where it would distort on the higher notes. This was annoying and lasted the entire history of that device. The ultimate test of this problem is 16 days by Five for Fighting. On the new touch…no distortion. On that or other songs.

Accessories – I was almost hesitant to plug it into my Klipsch iFi speaker system. This system has served me well over the years producing crystal clear sound. I was afraid the new Touch would not work with the IFI. Well, I quickly plugged it in and it worked! I am happy about that. However, there is a charging issue with the docking cradle of the IFI. Unfortunately, in its current state, you can’t charge. I am hoping Klipsch or another company comes out with an adapter. There is a long list of complaints over at the Apple forum about this very issue.

I should also mention that since the 2G is so new, not many companies have accessories yet.

Video – I transferred an episode of The Wire to the iPod and gave it a quick screening. The picture quality was good. The sound was good. There wasn’t any choppiness or dropped frames that I could see. Having watched my fair share of short videos on the Pocket PC, this is probably the best I’ve seen on a handheld.

Even though I don’t normally go out of my way to watch videos on handhelds, I did burn about 3 hours the other night watching YouTube videos of Brian Regan and other comics. Instead of Youtube just being tolerable, it was one of the only times I found myself enjoying the hell out of it.

Maps – I didn’t expect much out of the maps feature but when I turned it on I was impressed. Using my wifi connection, it triangulated my location (my house) within 100 yards. I found it a little spooky in fact. A quick search for Starbucks dropped half a dozen pins on the map revealing the shops near my house and directions if I needed them. Pretty cool.

Clocks and Timers – a useful feature for timer activated workers like me is the clocks and alarms feature. There is a countdown timer I can use to work the 5 minute productivity secret or a 33 minute writing session.

Text Entry – I have big hands. Using screen keyboards and thumb-boards are difficult. Apple addresses this limitation with predictive text entry. When you make a typo (which in my case is every word), then it makes an educated guess at the word you were aiming for. As slick as this is, I still make a lot of mistakes that it doesn’t catch. I assume I won’t be thumbing out 50 WPM any time soon. I’d be curious if anyone else gets better results?

Would it make a good Electronic Organizer PIM? – The mail, calendar features, notepad, timers and alarm features are nice. You can sync them with iTunes and iCal. Do some hacking and you can get them on Google Calendar too.

Due to the text entry problem, I think the iPod touch is very limited in this area. Making a calendar entry that looks like Meet wiggt Gems isn’t going to work for me. Maybe I just need practice?

I don’t think I will be giving up my Dell Axim Pocket PC anytime soon.

Entertainment value – Overall, since the iPod is mainly an entertainment device, I think it passes with flying colors. The videos are clear, crisp and sound good. The music sounds better than my old iPod color.

I know I’m not the only one to try one of the new second generation touches.  If you’ve got one, post your thoughts below.