Over the past couple of years, I’ve been somewhat of a Zune fanboy. I certainly had my reasons. My first MP3 player was a 20 GB iPod that I loved for about a year, until the hard drive was somehow corrupted and it stopped working. After several unsuccessful attempts to resurrect my poor iPod, I gave up and tossed it aside in favor of using other devices to satisfy my MP3 playing needs. For a while, I was getting by with just my PSP and whatever songs I could cram onto its memory stick but that just wasn’t enough. Two years ago, Microsoft released the Halo 3 Edition Zune and, in the midst of my Halo 3 fanboyism, I snapped it up without a second thought and instantly fell in love. The Zune isn’t the perfect MP3 player, but in my mind, it was incredibly underrated. But I digress…

Ever since the announcement of the iPhone and the subsequent announcement of the iPod Touch, I’ve been following the two gadgets closely but I must say that my interest in the iPhone is virtually nil, due to the fact that I am a Verizon customer and the iPhone is saddled with AT&T. This is a carrier I’ve heard naught but bad things about in regards to call quality and signal reception, two things that are rather important when it comes to phones. Perhaps when the iPhone makes the jump to Verizon’s vastly superior network (I’m a bit of a Verizon fanboy as well), then I’ll get excited about it.

So, the iPod Touch was the device I latched onto and grew increasingly fond of over the past few months and, after just as many months of quiet consideration, I bought one. After being on the fence for so long, what finally pushed me over the edge? Unsurprisingly, I finally caved after having a few opportunities to actually use the device and after using the iPod Touch, I was convinced. I had to have one.

You see, I’m the type of tech nerd that is constantly searching for “that device” and other tech nerds will know what I’m talking about. It’s that one, magical device that will do everything you want it to do, be it playing MP3s, videos, making phone calls, sending e-mail, internet browsing, whatever. You name it, that device does it. Arguably, the iPhone is the closest any device has ever come but I’ve already explained why I’m not gushing about that.

And there you have it. I’ve been using it over the past few days and I love it. Honestly, I really wanted to wait for the Zune HD to see what it would offer to counter the iPod Touch beyond what little we know such as the inclusion of the Nvidia Tegra chip and integrated HD radio but I’m quite the impatient fellow when it comes to things like this and Microsoft’s slow trickle of information related to the Zune HD has turned me off and yes, I fully understand that this is standard operating procedure for corporations such as these. So far, the iPod Touch is pretty much everything I was hoping it would be and provides one of the best experiences I’ve had with a portable device because it comes the closest to being “that device”.

I’m considering writing up a full review of the iPod Touch over the next couple days and maybe doing a little video review or something. We’ll see. For now, I’ll just say that I’m impressed with the iPod Touch and very happy with my purchase and leave it that.