Despite the new iPod touch being even thinner than last year's model, Apple has managed to squeeze into it a super-sharp Retina display, two cameras and the A4 processor that powers the iPhone 4 and iPad.
These key hardware upgrades mean you can now make FaceTime calls and record and edit HD video, just like you can on the iPhone 4.
Apple hasn't copied the iPhone 4's form factor, however, so the touch retains its shiny metal backplate, which is as prone to fingerprints and smears as it's always been.
The Sleep/Wake button has moved to the right-hand side, to match the iPhone and iPad, but the headphone connector remains on the bottom, next to the dock connector.
With a feature-set that's so close to the iPhone 4, comparisons are inevitable, even though, ultimately, one's a phone and the other is a media player with a whole load of extras. Importantly, there's no ongoing cost involved with the iPod touch, which there is if you sign up for an iPhone 4 with a contract.
There are three iPod touch models in all: an 8GB offering for £189, a mid-sized 32GB version at £249, and the top-end 64GB one, costing £329.
Once you get the new iPod touch in your hand, it feels incredibly thin, and at 101g, it's 14g lighter than its predecessor and 36g less than the iPhone 4.
One less fortunate change that Apple has made, is no longer supplying headphones with an in-wire clicker. You get a regular (read: rubbish) pair of Apple earphones, which means you have to get the iPod out of your pocket to control the media player.
While you can plug in a compatible set of clicker earphones, it's a shame Apple has chosen not to supply these with its top-of-the-range iPod.
The touch's processor has been upgraded to an A4, just like the iPhone 4 and iPad, and performance is superb – more on that later.
Retina display
When you switch the iPod touch on, the first thing you notice is the amazing Retina display.
With a resolution of 960x640 pixels, it packs in 326 pixels per inch, which is four times as many as the screen in the iPod touch third generation model.
The display's bright, vivid and incredibly sharp – if you've used an older iPod touch or iPhone recently, you'll notice the difference immediately, especially when reading text. Even after using it for a week, we're still amazed by it every time we switch it on.
But while this is a Retina display, it's not exactly the same as the iPhone's, in that it doesn't have in-plane switching (IPS). This means the viewing angles aren't as good, and you can see a marked difference between this and the iPhone 4 if you look at the screen from an angle.
However, in practical terms, we didn't notice anything when using the iPod touch on our own or even when watching over a friend's shoulder.
The new iPod touch also has the usual Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and wireless-N makes its bow on an iPod for the first time too.
Apple hasn't put a GPS chip in the iPod touch, but its location pinpointing system, which uses nearby Wi-Fi networks, was remarkably good in urban areas – though invariably it doesn't work when you're away from civilisation.
When the very first iPods came out, there was a lot of talk about battery life, and it's a testament to Apple that such discussion is now largely irrelevant. The company claims the fourth generation touch can do 40 hours of music playback, or seven of video, compared to 30 and 6 in the third-generation model.
As with all such devices, exact battery life depends on what you're doing with the device, but we never found ourselves glancing nervously at the battery indicator, as we have done with some previous iPods. A percentage figure next to the battery indicator would be a nice addition though.
App store
Just like the iPhone and iPad, you can take your pick from the 250,000 apps on the App Store to make your iPod touch do just about anything you want.
Steve Jobs has been keen to press the point about the device's gaming capabilities, and the new Game Center app, part of iOS 4.1, and the three-axis gyroscope both add to this.
Game Center is a one-stop shop for gaming, where you can download compatible games from the App Store and build up a list of friends to play against. The list of games is growing all the time, and includes popular titles such as FarmVille, Flight Control and Real Racing. As with any social network, it'll become more fun as more of your friends join up to it.
The iPod touch's cameras are a bit like the proverbial buses – we've waited years for one to appear, and now two have come along at once.
There's a VGA front-facing camera for FaceTime video chat, and a rear-facing one for taking snaps.
Both are welcome additions, even though the latter isn't anywhere near as good as the iPhone 4's when it comes to taking still photos. At just 960x720 pixels (0.69 megapixels), there were compact cameras a decade ago that were capable of more.
Colour reproduction is slightly colder and less realistic than the iPhone 4, and the angle of view is narrower.
Furthermore, there's no HDR, and the lens is fixed-focus – tapping the screen merely alters the exposure. So while this could take a quick snap of your day out to share on Twitter or Facebook, its uses are limited as a stills camera.
Certainly when compared to the iPhone 4, it's chalk and cheese, and you can see a marked difference between the two photos below, taken from exactly the same position using an iPod touch and an iPhone 4.
iPod touch 4G photo
Where the camera does hold its own, however, is video recording. It shoots 30 frames per second at a resolution of 1280x720 for 720p HD, and does a decent job.
While colours still aren't as rich as those in iPhone 4 footage, the angle of view was wider and panning was smoother. We'd go so far as to say that we preferred the iPod touch for the sort of straightforward, point-and-shoot video that it's most likely to get used for.
That said, it's still no match for a dedicated camcorder or even a Flip-style pocket device.
Once you've recorded your footage, you can edit and publish it by buying iMovie for £4.99 from the App Store.
Formats
The included headphones, as we mentioned earlier, don't have a clicker in the wire, and are much as you'd expect from Apple – solid but unspectacular.
Frequency response is between 20Hz and 20,000Hz, with an impedance of 32 ohms. It's worth playing around with the various EQ presets to get a bit more oomph out of them, but you'll never get huge depth or powerful bass.
Sound also starts to get a bit tinny if you turn the volume up very high. Certainly they're better than the ones that came with very early iPods, but if you like your music, it's worth investing a little extra in some specialist earphones.
The iPod supports a range of audio formats, including 8-320Kbps AAC (and the protected variant that you get from the iTunes Store). You can also play HE-AAC, regular and VBR MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless, WAVE and Audible (2, 3, 4, Enhanced Audio, AAX and AAX+).
But it won't play FLAC, OGG or WMA files without converting them on your computer first. If you try to copy an incompatible file to your iPod touch, iTunes will warn you it won't work and will refuse to copy it.
Video-wise, the iPod touch plays a range of formats including up to 720p H.264-encoded formats such as .mp4, .mov and .m4v. It also likes MPEG-4-encoded .mp4, .mov and .m4v, as well as Motion JPEG .avi files. Again, there are free tools for Mac and PC to convert these, such as Videora.
Apple also sells Dock to VGA, Dock to component AV and Dock to Composite AV cables to output video from the iPod touch.
Sound quality
We've never been massive fans of the sound quality on Apple's iPods. It's certainly not awful, but compared to, say, Creative's Zen X-Fi, the sound of the iPod is noticeably lacking. This was true of last year's iPod touch, and not much has changed with the new model.
This weakness becomes more apparent if you use the touch with some more accomplished headphones. We test using some super-duper earphones from Shure, and even with a 320kbps MP3 file (you'll find no snobby audiophiles in the TechRadar office!) the music quality can sound a tad muddy compared to the Zen or even some of Sony's Walkman devices.
If we were Apple, we'd sling Creative some pocket money and stick some of that X-Fi technology into the touch and the iPad. Unfortunately, it's more likely that we'll see Steve Jobs landing on the moon next year than such a partnership ever being announced.
Verdict:
So is the iPod touch worth it? Relative to the iPod nano, it's a no brainer if you can stump up the extra cash.
With the 8GB nano coming in at £129 and the 16GB model £159, the huge number of extra features you get with the touch makes it totally worth the extra money. Comparing it to the iPhone is more complicated, and ultimately, your choice will depend on what you want to use the device for.
Remember that just because the iPod touch can't connect to mobile networks itself doesn't mean it can't be used as a phone or to browse the web when you're not within range of your Wi-Fi network.
As well as FaceTime, apps such as Skype enable you to make and receive calls, and if you're prepared to carry round a MiFi dongle (which turns a 3G signal into a Wi-Fi network), then you're no longer tied to fixed Wi-Fi.
Certainly for occasional use, an iPod touch and a PAYG MiFi is far cheaper than buying the bottom-end iPhone 4 on PAYG.
So comparing the touch to the other products in Apple's range, it offers remarkably good value for the incredible set of features you get with it.
But taking a step back, £189 is a lot of money to stump up for anything, let alone £329, however good its feature-set may be. It would have been nice to see the 8GB model come in below the £150 mark, and the 64GB version dropped to under that £300 hurdle.
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