Now that I have played with my Touch for 2 days (and accomplished almost nothing else in between).... iPod is dead and charging ATM, I can comment.
First, the Touch absolutely blew me away. Yeah I know there are some gripes here and there (some more substantive than others) I think the "wow" factor comes with putting one of these in your hands. Once you turn it on and see the massive display, and once you spend 2 seconds using the "touch what you want" interface, you are basically hooked. It's the equivalent of doing the Wii demo at the malls when the Wii first came out. Once you played that first game of tennis, it was all over but the credit card clicking.
When I ordered the iPod, I wanted something with a failry large screen that was portable, thin, and able to play movies. But once I got it and started playing with Safari, I realized I had vastly underrated this ipod's killer feature. I can't explain how awesome it was to whip the ipod out of my pocked this evening and go read the news holding the device with 2 fingers and using another finger (from the same hand) to flick down the page. Laptops are good, but come on! who wants to drag their laptop to the local coffee shop? or even on a lunch break do you really want to bust out your laptop? you can, and certainly you can do more with a laptop than an iPod could do, but the size means you are very likely to take it with you.
Being able to check your webmail is awesome. I sent and received messages on both Shaw webmail and my U of Lethbridge webmail. Neither site had any issues.
Quite frankly, now that I'm back on my laptop, I somewhat miss the "stretch and zoom" ability of iPod touch. Sometimes there's something really small that ou want to see, and you would LOVE to just zoom in on it - but you can't really.
Next, did I mention ease of use? I had my GRANDMA flicking through photos and enlarging them today. Please show me another device that is simple enough for your grandma to use (someone who has never sat in front of a computer in her life, and asked me repeatedly if the ipod opens, and how the pictures got into it lol.) I'm serious - show me!
Video playback is awesome. I now have almost 4 gigs of video on my ipod although that is a whole season of a show, plus robin williams live on broadway.
The lock functionality is better than any other ipod. By doing the finger drag, you are avoiding having to move the hold bar. I hated the hold bar because I always forgot to re-lock after I adjusted volume or switched tracks. The slider can't be activated unless you actually drag your finger all the way across otherwise nothing happens.
I'm telling you, if you aren't convinced by now, go into a store and get one of these things in your hand. Once you see and feel it, you will be sold. This truly is a device you have to see to comprehend.
