iPod touch - 8 or 32?

I'm looking to buy an iPod touch for my wife's Birthday. I think it will be used mostly with speakers at home and probably connected to utube by WiFi.

We have three small kids and in reality I reckon the iPod will be lost or broken long before we fill up the 1700 songs that the 8Gb entry level one offers. Apart from storage capacity, are there any glaring differences between the 32GB and much cheaper 8GB? Will she be able to listen to / view songs on u-tube with the 8GB?

Also, since the pricing seems to be standarised in every shop I've looked in, are there any differences in what comes with the iPod (do you even get earphones?)?
Thanks in advance from a novice technophile.

No difference in operations, only on the amount of songs, video, etc than can be stored. So if you're never going to get near the 8gb in number of songs, then stick with the smaller.

As to pricing, it is all standard and you'll never really be able to "shop around" unless you're going outside of Ireland and looking at sterling prices etc. Not sure how Apple get around that one with all the price fixing.

What you'll get with it is headphones, a widget for the docking station and usb cable. You have to get iTunes (if you haven't already) from the Apple Website (used to provide a disc) and the detailed operational manual has to be downloaded too.

It's a great piece of kit and surprisingly robust, so don't worry too much about the kids. The touch screen is vulnerable to being hit or sat on, but if you get a good protective case, it'll be fine. Only issue is they don't fit in the docking station with the case on.

My only other point would be that if this is only going to be used in a docking station, then you may not need the iTouch given it is viewed as more than just an mp3 player. If the wife is going to use it out and about, on holiday etc and will use applications, it's worth the buy.

Thanks Latrade, very helpful, made my mind up for me.

Any idea of what's a decent docking station? I see you can pick one up for about €50 in Argos and can pretty much pay a fortune elsewhere.

If you're not an "audiophile" then even the cheaper ones will do the job. They have decent enough sound and volume and in fairness, because MP3 formats are compressed and lose some quality, it makes me wonder why you'd need such a decent system as you'll get to notice the losses more.

Just make sure that the docking station is set up for iPods. Most are these days, in fact most are designed primarily to work with iPods over other MP3 players, but just check and it should state on the box if it is suitable for iPods. Also check on the box that it is suitable for the iPod touch, but again, the more recent ones will be, but worth checking.

Last point is that some of the cheaper docking stations are really just alarm clocks, so you won't be getting great sound. Go with something that is an actual docking station. Again, there's plenty of ones in and round €50- €100 that will do the job.

Something like the iPig (if you want cute) is fine:



Shop around as some places have these for much less that the €72.

I'd also recommend the iPig, great sound out of it.

Also a while back Harvey Normans had it reduced to €25 - it might be worth checking what price they are doing them for now.

Thanks again Latrade, I ordered an 8Gb testerday complete with engraving from Apple.

Thanks for the heads up Jacobean, I'll check out Harvey Norman some evening.