Great gadget, small audience: The sixth-generation iPod Touch reviewed

Specs at a glance: Sixth-generation iPod Touch
Screen	1136×640 4-inch (326PPI) IPS touchscreen
OS	iOS 8.4
CPU	~1.1GHz Apple A8
RAM	1GB
GPU	"Apple A8 GPU," aka Imagination Technologies PowerVR GX6450
Storage	16, 32, 64, or 128GB
Networking	802.11ac Wi-Fi (433Mbps), Bluetooth 4.1
Ports	Lightning, headphones
Camera	8MP rear camera, 1.2MP front camera
Size	4.86" x 2.31" x 0.24" (123.4 x 58.6 x 6.1mm)
Weight	3.10oz (88g)
Battery	1043mAh
Price	$199/$249/$299/$399 for 16/32/64/128GB
Warranty	One year, two years with $59 AppleCare+ purchase

The iPod Touch was long overdue for a refresh. Three years is a long time for any smartphone- or tablet-class device to stick around, even if the last decade has seen the iPod slide from Apple’s mainstream halo product to being dumped into the “other” section on the company’s earnings reports. The 2012 iPod Touch, for all its good qualities, wasn’t even a cutting-edge gadget at the time.

But no one was expecting a new iPod Touch to jump three processor generations, from the hoary old A5 all the way up to the cutting-edge A8. This is (essentially) the same chip that powers the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and it’s in a product that's less than one-third of the price. It’s still smaller and its lack of TouchID or cellular makes it less versatile than a smartphone, of course, but the new iPod Touch is a surprisingly impressive update for a product tucked away in a tiny, vanishing corner of the iOS ecosystem.

Though the new iPod looks the same, its improvements include more than the new processor: a better 8MP camera, upgraded Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a new 128GB storage tier, and an M8 motion coprocessor are chief among them. The iPod will only matter for a few very specific audiences, but it now serves that niche extraordinarily well.

Look, feel, and sound

The new iPod looks and feels exactly the same as its fifth-generation predecessor. As big as the changes on the inside are, the product isn't important enough to merit a larger-screened redesign or any other significant external changes. If you liked the look and feel of the old iPod, you're in luck. If you hated it, there's no reason to stop.

There is one major cosmetic difference: the iPod is available in a handful of new colors. The old yellow, pink, and teal colors have been retired. In their place are gold iPods that match the finish on the gold iPhones and iPads and new pink and blue colors that are darker and more saturated than the old ones. The Product Red iPod we chose has the same finish as before, and space gray and silver Touches are still available, too. The space gray one is the only one with a black bezel, if that makes a difference to you.

Still, the iPod’s three-year-old design continues to fit in well with the rest of the iOS lineup. It shares a slim profile and a camera bump with the iPhone six (though at 6.1mm it’s even thinner than the phone) and a beveled aluminum edge and lack of a mute switch with the iPad Air 2. It still uses a 4-inch, 1136x640 display panel identical in size, color, and contrast with the ones used in the iPhone 5 and 5S and the fifth-generation Touch.

The Touch remains thin and light enough that it can slip into any pocket or bag virtually unnoticed, which makes it an especially nice mobile gaming device compared to a bulkier dedicated system or (in some cases) an iPad Mini.

But for all its positive qualities, Apple has cut a few aesthetic and functional corners to bring the price down. The black antenna cutout on the back is inelegant compared to the cutouts in the iPhone 5- and 6-series designs. No iPod model includes TouchID. The camera has improved, but it has no two-tone LED flash. There’s no GPS, especially annoying if you want to use the iPod as a jogging companion. For whatever reason the battery indicator is incapable of displaying a percentage, even though the OS clearly knows (or can guess at) the percentage anyway (it can tell you when it’s 100% charged or if the battery has 20% remaining, for example). And unlike the iPhones, the iPod lacks both a vibration motor and an auto-brightness sensor for the display.

The iPod’s size may also cause some users problems. It's fairly narrow and not very thick, so (especially for a large-handed user like me) it can cause a bit of cramping during extended typing sessions. And while there are plenty of you who like smaller screens and would actually like to see a new 4-inch iPhone this fall, after nine months of using an iPhone 6 it's hard not to miss that larger, higher-resolution screen.

As for how it sounds, the answer is "like any other iDevice." Apple uses similar Cirrus audio chips in all of its iOS products, and as a result they all tend to produce audio that sounds about the same. You might be able to measure small differences with specialized equipment, but my ears couldn't tell the difference between music and podcasts played on the old and new iPod Touches and the iPhone 6.

An improved camera

The new iPod Touch steps up to an 8MP camera sensor from the 5MP sensor in the previous generation, which ought to improve quality quite a bit all by itself. iFixit's teardown shows that the camera and lens assembly is a fair bit smaller than the iPhone 6's, though—you're not getting Apple's top-end shooter here. It's also missing a sapphire crystal lens cover and has an f/2.4 aperture instead of the iPhone's f/2.2 (the iPhones 5 and 5C were f/2.4, but all iPhones from the 5S and up use f/2.2).

Aside from the camera hardware, the improved image signal processor (ISP) and faster CPU and GPU in the Apple A8 open up some features that were totally unavailable in the last-generation Touch. The new iPod can take burst photos and 120 FPS slow-motion video, the same capabilities that the iPhone 5S has. Unlike that phone, though, it doesn't have the two-tone LED flash that can be used to get slightly more natural-looking shots when the flash is on.

The new iPod Touch's camera bump is identical to the bump in the old one (and similar to the one in the iPhone 6), and it's still a bit annoying. The iPod wobbles a little when you place it on flat surfaces. The little camera loop button on the fifth-generation iPod is gone here, for whatever reason—either Apple wanted to simplify manufacturing, it needed more room inside the thin iPod Touch case, or maybe it's just because nobody used it. It's hard to say.

We took the iPhone 6 and the old and new iPod Touches out to take their cameras for a spin. Compared to the old iPod Touch, the increased megapixel count means the pictures have more detail (notice the cat's fur in the first picture, the bricks in the last picture). Low-light performance has improved somewhat, but that's still a place where the iPhone has a clear advantage. The iPod's pictures also tend to be just a bit noisier and more blown out than the iPhone's. The iPod is a more than serviceable point-and-shoot and it's a big upgrade over the old model, but it's not quite Apple's best camera.