 This is David with The Verge and this is the iPod Touch. It's the latest version just announced a few weeks ago and it's now hitting stores this week. The first thing you notice when you take it out of the box is just how thin it is. It's less than a quarter inch thick and only weighs slightly over three ounces, which is just insanely small. It still feels relatively well made though, but it's not quite as well machined or crafted as the iPhone 5. Also unlike the iPhone, it comes in a bunch of pretty intense colors. Whichever color you pick, you get a same colored loop with it. The loop is the strange combination of a lanyard and a nub that comes out of the back of the iPod and lets you essentially wrap it around your wrist so you don't drop it. Fortunately the little nub retracts if you don't want to use it. Otherwise though, the new iPod Touch is basically a combination of the last three iPhones. It has the same four inch display as the iPhone 5, same resolution, same technology. It has the same A5 processor as the iPhone 4S and it has the same 5 megapixel camera as the iPhone 4. It also runs iOS 6 and you get just about every feature in the new OS. There's really nothing that gets left off. I used an iPhone 4S for a long time and it feels basically just like that. It's not quite as smooth or fast as the iPhone 5, but it works really well. As always it's great for music and you can easily use Bluetooth or AirPlay to send audio or video to a different device. AirPlay mirroring works really well. There's also a speaker on the iPod which is located right next to the iPod's lightning connector on the bottom. And it's okay, but you'll still want an external setup for almost everything. That's also true of Apple's EarPod headphones. They're definitely a step above what Apple was offering before, but they're still far from being good headphones. One of the things Apple's talked a lot about with the new iPod Touch is how it can replace your point and shoot camera. And for a lot of people it's probably true. It has somewhat old optics from the iPhone 4, but with new software and a better processor actually takes better pictures and does pretty well. Overall this really is the best iPod Touch yet by a long shot. It's the most like an iPhone it's ever been and got some really good hardware upgrades and software upgrades in the latest revision. But when the cheapest iPod Touch is now $299, it's not exactly an impulse purchase anymore. I suspect a lot of people buy iPod Touches for their kids or if they're not ready to pay for a data plan. And this is a great device for all of those people, but it's a seriously steep price to pay. The iPod Touch is definitely still the de facto music player and still the best one, but you're probably going to have to think a little bit harder before you buy this model.