Pros: Ease of use. Sound quality. Various ways to find what you want to listen to.
Cons: No volume control on the outside. Learning curve on use of touch screen.
The bottom line: Glad I made the purchase.
I bought the 8 gig iTouch about 3 weeks ago & I'm having so much fun with it. I've loaded over a thousand songs from my CD collection & it's like I've discovered my music all over again. Very easy to load your own music into the device. I load it into iTunes then "sync" that into the iTouch. This is the easiest way for me. I've also bought some music from iTunes & then "sync" that into the iTouch. The sound quality is very good. I have a Samsung 2 gig MP3, which also has very good sound quality. But the problem with that is I have a hard time finding the music I want to listen to. Much easier to find what you want on the iTouch with it's large screen and various methods of pulling up the music, by artists, songs, album art & playlists you create through iTunes. I've tried watching a complementary TV show that came from iTunes, but, for me, the screen is to small for that. It's also too small for me to go online with. Also, the "keyboard" that pops up on the screen is hard for me to use. But, you can load your digital photos, which is easily done, & the picture quality is good.

On the downside, there is no volume control on the outside of the device. You have to do it through the touchscreen & may require a couple of "touches" to set the volume where you want it. Touching the exact song you want to listen to is also an acquired skill, at least for me. (I'm in the over 50 crowd.) It also smudges easily & could be scratched. But, there are plenty of cases & covers out there to deal with that.

BTW, for the uninformed, like me, there is no charge for using iTunes, unless you buy music. A great resource book about all of the various iPods is "The iPod Book", 4th edition, by Scott Kelby. I would highly recommend it for first time iPod buyers.

Some people are saying that this has little storage capacity for a high price. As I said, I have over 1,000 songs on this & it is not half full yet. But, I don't intend to load it up with videos or photos, so if that's in the cards for you, you may want to consider the ones with a bigger memory.

Bottom line for me, I've fallen in love with my music all over again with this device.