Over the weekend, I went to the mall with a friend and decided I wanted an iPod touch 4G. I have for a long time, because of its front facing camera, and also the cool iOS apps that make use of cameras, such as Instagram (yeah yeah, it’s coming to Android someday)…but this weekend I was like I must have it. God knows why.
So Monday I went to the store and bought it. Because I am an idiot, or something. I felt guilty, but I did it. I should be saving money for Japan, but I dropped $200 on the iPod touch. Whatever.
Then, Tuesday night, I discovered the damn rear camera is less than one megapixel which puts it on par with cameras sold in 1998. I checked…there were 1MP cameras available in 1998. And this is what Apple saw fit to put on their iPod touch. Now, originally I thought well, it’s just to keep the price down. Surely the iPad, an expensive luxury item, has a better camera. Nope…same crappy sub-1MP camera. What the hell, Apple? How can you put a very well rated camera into the iPhone 4S, and such bullshit into the other iDevices?
So I’m going to return it. The rear camera is shit, and while the FFC is up to normal FFC standards, it’s $200 for a front-facing camera, so to hell with that. I’m going to return it tomorrow…was going to be today until I realized you have to use the computer to do a restore operation, so I’ll do that tonight, and then return it tomorrow.
Instead I’m looking into putting this into my existing cell phone, a Samsung Vibrant. There are lots of tutorials out there for it, and I once replaced a malfunctioning camera in a Blackberry Curve 8310, so I think I can do this. Reportedly you have to use a custom ROM to get the FFC working, which I didn’t want to do because the Vibrant can’t call 911 with a custom ROM installed. But I’m going to Japan for a year, and they don’t have 911 there anyway, so…no big deal on that front.
Of course, what I really want is the myTouch 4G Slide, which is what I would have gotten if I hadn’t gotten the job in Japan. But that is $350, so I can’t get that. I am going to spend the $25 or whatever on the FFC, do the mod, and cross my fingers.