CF Apple Computer

When Apple first introduced its iPod Touch — a media player that uses the same cool touch technology as the breakthrough iPhone — I was both intrigued and disappointed. While I didn’t care much for the iPhone itself — see www.chron.com/iphone — the notion of a touch-based device that focuses just on movies, music and Wi-Fi Web access called to me. What gave me pause, though, was its limited storage capacity and price.

When it was first launched last fall, it was available only in 8- and 16-gigabyte models, at $299 and $399, respectively. That’s a lot of money for not a lot of headroom. For that kind of coin, I’d expect to be able to carry all my music and video in a device. I have about 14 GB on my current iPod — a 30-GB fifth-generation model — and so the 8-GB iPod Touch wouldn’t work for me. The pricier 16-GB model is better, but doesn’t leave much room to grow.

So I was very interested when Apple earlier this month announced a 32-GB model. Suddenly, the iPod Touch, which uses flash memory, is playing in the same league as hard-disk-based media players. And it makes sense that the company would release it now, because it recently also started offering movie rentals via its iTunes Store. But while the new capacity makes me happy, the price makes me sad. It’s $499, which is a lot more than competing, flash-based media players with the same capacity.

The Sansa View is $349. Hard-drive media players of the same capacity run in the $200 range. You’re paying more, of course, for the ability to access the Internet via Wi-Fi, and to do so via a touch interface. Oh, and you’re also paying a premium for that cute Apple logo on the back.