iPod touch Some questions for a potential buyer

[kerpow]

Hi, my iPod photo is dying a death after 4 years of heavy use. I'm looking at getting the 16GB Touch as I feel the 8GB has too little space to drop down to and the 32GB is too expensive. I'm in the middle of an 18 month contract so getting the iPhone isn't really an option either. I also don't use a mobile phone enough to justify the £35 a month tariff.

So a few questions:

With the wifi, are there any problems connecting to any secure networks eg. WEP 128, WPA etc.?

Will the A/V cable that I used with my iPod Photo work with the touch ie. can I hook it up to a TV and watch movies?

Does the mail client work well? I assume I can get email when connected to wifi and also work offline composing emails and send when I next connect. Would I have to know the outgoing SMTP server for every location I'm at to send mail? I keep all my mail on my POP3 server as I access it from many computers - will the Mail application try to download all the mail or can I choose to only d/l mail from the last 7 days?

How good is YouTube access? With a decent wifi connection will movies play in high quality?

Same for BBC iPlayer?

I found this - http://iphonetester.com/ which is really useful. I see that some websites convert well to the smaller screen size, some don't. Is is easy to scroll across the screen in both horizontal and vertical modes?

Can I sync photos in the usual manner and flip through them in the same way the iPhone does with photos that it has taken with its camera?

I've heard that Meebo and other web based solutions for IM is possible. Anyone care to offer a personal review? Its only MSN that I use. Is the Microsoft Web based messenger a better option? Some of these work ok but if you already logged on at another device they can't connect. Anything else I could try?

I assume that all .mov and .mp4 files will work flawlessly if they are viewable in iTunes. If I want to watch an .avi or other format will I have to convert it to .mp4? Is there a loss in quality or increase in file size? I expect there plenty of resources to download almost everything in the .mp4 format.

What is jailbreak and is it really worth the hassle and potential problems of messing around with?

Is there a technical reason why Flash hasn't been ported by Adobe? I'm aware that Flash Lite, that other smart phones use, was not considered to be enough but surely Adobe has had 2 years now to sort this out. How hard can it be?

Appreciate any comments.

 

[mzd]

With the wifi, are there any problems connecting to any secure networks eg. WEP 128, WPA etc.?
mixed reviews here. i have not had any trouble with my touch on my WPA network or the wifi network at work (requires web login)

Does the mail client work well? I assume I can get email when connected to wifi and also work offline composing emails and send when I next connect. Would I have to know the outgoing SMTP server for every location I'm at to send mail? I keep all my mail on my POP3 server as I access it from many computers - will the Mail application try to download all the mail or can I choose to only d/l mail from the last 7 days?
i love the mail.app. works very well with yahoo (has IMAP like features). i can read and compose mail offline and i don't need to change any SMTP settings when i move to other wifi locations. you can set how many messages get downloaded. default is 50 so it never keeps more than 50 messages in the inbox/folders. as new ones come in, older messages get removed. deleting a message on my iPod also deletes it in yahoo.

How good is YouTube access? With a decent wifi connection will movies play in high quality?
great YouTube quality! in fact, better than on the web (H264 QT format vs. flash). no experience with BBC iPlayer.

I found this - http://iphonetester.com/ which is really useful. I see that some websites convert well to the smaller screen size, some don't. Is is easy to scroll across the screen in both horizontal and vertical modes?
my experience with mobile safari has been great. navigation and scrolling is easy. just be careful you aren't clicking on a link when you go to scroll. my only complaint is saved images are VERY low resolution, regardless of the original image resolution.

Can I sync photos in the usual manner and flip through them in the same way the iPhone does with photos that it has taken with its camera?
yep, same photo app as the iPhone.

I assume that all .mov and .mp4 files will work flawlessly if they are viewable in iTunes. If I want to watch an .avi or other format will I have to convert it to .mp4? Is there a loss in quality or increase in file size? I expect there plenty of resources to download almost everything in the .mp4 format.
i think only .mp4 video works (or .m4v). don't think there is support for .mov. you can download converter apps to convert avi, mov, etc. you always loose some quality when cross-converting. i haven't found much in the way of mp4 or m4v online for downloading outside of video podcasts and the iTunes store. others may have better sources than i do?

What is jailbreak and is it really worth the hassle and potential problems of messing around with?
jailbreaking allows you to further customize the iPod OS and install free apps. but now that the app store is available for the iPod touch, i think the need/want to jailbreak has gone down significantly. legitimate apps are reasonably priced (and many free). if you are a "power user" and need SSH or other more advanced functionality, then you'd still need to jailbreak.

Is there a technical reason why Flash hasn't been ported by Adobe? I'm aware that Flash Lite, that other smart phones use, was not considered to be enough but surely Adobe has had 2 years now to sort this out. How hard can it be?
i believe it is a stalemate between apple and adobe. apple has strict processing/power limits and system reqs and for some reason adobe just isn't committed to making it happen. maybe someday is the only answer.

Appreciate any comments.

hope that helps!