Beautiful, bearded Maestro of Tech, Walt Mossberg, has been gently fingering the iPod Touch and finally told us exactly what he thinks of the iPhone-lookalike in his Wall Street Journal review.  Now Walt’s review of the iconic Apple cellphone was likely instrumental in pushing the handset to the top of the most-coveted leader-board, and Cupertino must’ve been hoping that it’d be another near-landslide victory for their flagship PMP.  Things, of course, are never so simple as that, and while parts of the Touch were good enough to make Walt’s beard stand on end, other things - namely battery life - were in for some criticism.

“[Apple] claims that the Touch can play music for up to 22 hours and video for up to five hours on a single battery charge, even with Wi-Fi turned on. But in my tests, using factory settings, music playback lasted just under 17 hours and video playback lasted just over four hours. Nearly every other iPod I’ve tested, including the new Nano, handily beat Apple’s battery claims” Walt Mossberg, WSJ.com

Check out Walt’s video review after the cut, together with more tidbits of his opinion…

Mossberg seems generally taken with the iPod Touch; he praises its tactile build, the ease of operation with iTunes and how straightforward it is accessing websites with the Safari browser (the same, of course, as is on the iPhone).  But he’s haunted by the device’s missed opportunities: the absence of email and mapping, for instance, which would work just as well with the Touch’s WiFi connection as it does on the iPhone.

The biggest hurdle, perhaps, was getting used to a new paradigm of control for those used to previous-generation iPods.  Having no physical buttons comes in for some Walt critique, and while he’s happy with some of the interface improvements over the iPhone (tapping the home button twice, for instance, brings up the audio controls no matter whether the screen is on or off) the lack of in-line controls for volume and pause as brought by the iPhone’s handsfree kit mean using the iPod Touch when out of sight is tricky.

“You can’t control your Touch by touch when you’re listening to music with the device in your pocket or purse” Walt Mossberg, WSJ.com

Still, he’s a happy bunny overall, and when Walt Mossberg is happy then Apple - and a whole lot of consumers who hang on his every word - are happy too.