In a moment of madness I bought an iPod touch at full price on Monday. I laughed, I cried, I had a blast. No, really, I just swore at my computer as I tried to figure out how to encode episodes of The Office into the right iPod format. I used DVD32 or whatever with Handbrake for PC and that didn’t work. So I tried AnyDVD, which worked with Handbrake. About 20 minutes later, I was able to watch The Office on the go. It wasn’t perfect though. About 20 minutes into the episode, artifacting or pixelation occurred (on a close-up of Dwight’s face, no less) and the video stopped playing. I was kicked back to the list of videos on the iPod touch.

In another moment of madness I returned the iPod touch less than 24 hours later. I realized I really need an iPhone with a fast internet connection. Wi-fi is neat, but neat shouldn’t set me back $400.

Oh, and there was no restocking fee when I returned it.  Thank you Best Buy!

I wanted an iPod Touch, then I didn’t want one, now I want one again.  Due to problems with blacks going negative on early shipments revealed from early reviews, the iPod Touch seemed like a step backwards.  Then there was light at the end of the tunnel: models after “week 37″ (check the 4th and 5th numbers of the serial code on the back) seem to be ok.  The Macy Gray box art is supposedly a give-away for week 38 models.

If I hadn’t checked ilounge.com the past few weeks I might be one of the people who pre-ordered and got a crappy iPod Touch.

It’s still unclear to me if the hissing audio problem is fixed in week 38 models and newer.  Why would both the video AND audio be messed up in early builds and why does Apple continue to deny any problems?  Anyone?