Plugging it in is indeed an option, but I don't like being around my Laptop for everything or letting other users on my laptop. And since it's a computer connected to a TV! (OMG!) people will just love to show their favourite YouTube videos first because it'll be too late after the movie. The by the time the movie would have ended we realized we've just watched two hours of youtube and not enough time for the movie.

Been there, experienced that for the last time. And being the only one out of my friends that dislikes Anime, things get rather unsettling for me when I'm on YouTube with them. But, Apple TV does have YouTube support, so I can only hope for parental controls.

So, a box purely for downloaded content will be fantastic. Even if I buy it with my money. And if I do I can take it when I move out! But I likely won't have a TV to start.

Prepare for Apple Fanboyism: As for other boxes, the Apple TV is well. Apple. I have Apple Devices. And they'll work flawlessly together. I can start watching a video on my phone during lunch break at work and when I get home at night I can start it back up, press a button on the video controls and stream the video from my phone to my TV. I'd like to see other boxes do that.
[/fanboyism]

Sadly, Apple is Apple and won't let that happen. So, really it comes to: Would I rather stream my videos from my computer or Apples Servers* or buy a box where I can save my videos onto and watch with my computer off. And if I get a non-Apple box, could it play Apple DRM'd media files?

*Now, there's this cool feature in Bonjour that is Mac OS X Snow Leopard specific that allows other Bonjour enabled computers to access the harddrive of a computer that is asleep: So, maybe they use this feature in the new Apple TV, as I've been unsuccessful of finding any information regarding where the shows are streamed from (Computer or Apple/iTunes Servers)

Way to break your own interface paradigm, Apple.

Because it's a close development environment with closed hardware and closed software. Apple devices are even built to only work with their own chargers! You had to do something that was, up until a few weeks ago, illegal (jailbreaking) to get any piece of software onto an iPad, iPod, or iPhone that Apple didn't approve of themselves. You wouldn't expect Dell to tell you that you're not allowed to install Firefox on your desktop, would you? Or even Microsoft? In either case, there would be utter outrage.

I'm getting the new iPod touch. I mainly just want it so I can use the web browser without bringing a computer with me everywhere. I also really need a camera, and the one in the new touch looks pretty nice. Now that classes are starting again, I don't really have money for the data plan on a smart phone, so an iPod touch is really my only option.

The new shuffles look cool if you're into that. Certainly better than the last generation. I don't see why you guys hate the nanos, though. Sure, the touch screen isn't "needed," but it's not like it hurts the device at all. It'll be way more efficient to navigate than that damn click-wheel.

For me there's not really a point. 99% of the day I'm either in front of a computer, carrying a computer in my bag, in from of three computers, or sleeping next to a computer. The one day of a week that I work outside, my current featurephone is more than sufficient to keep me in touch with the outside world via texts, twitter, mobile viewing of Cemetech, and email.

You can always just buy an Android phone or something, and not use the phone part. You can buy them without plans, you know. Go to ebay and pick one up used for cheap, even. Some companies, like Archos, even sell Android devices with no phone parts (although don't get the Archos one - it sucks). For pure web browsing something like the Dell Streak would probably be great - 5" screen.

The problem with the nano and touch screen MP3 players in general is that you can't just reach into your pocket and go to the next song. You just can't operate a touch screen without looking at it, which is annoying.

Which is why some Android custom ROMs now do things like let you hold the volume up/down to skip songs (or something like that), and the camera button pauses.

You sir, are wrong. I operate my iPod Touch in my pocket just fine. I can go forward, backward, and even adjust the volume via the slider onscreen. All without looking at the screen. Just the same as any person can get used to typing on a touchscreen without looking. Muscle memory is a fantastic thing to use.

Also, the pause button on my headphones allows me to skip a song.

Yeah, but I can do that too, and my touchscreen device is not an iToy. I can also pause and play songs, change volume, and lock the device with hardware buttons; I only need the screen for skipping forward or back. Ha.

Well, I'm glad that we've established that we can all achieve the same feat on different devices (I can type, change songs, volume, etc... on my iPhone without looking too :B ).

Well, we had to do our important macho posturing. Swivel, why did you choose to get an iDevice?