how many songs does an 8GB ipod touch really hold?

A little less than 1750 songs. The specs for older iPods specified a number of songs. For the 2G iPod Apple said:

Capacity

• 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB flash drive²
• Holds up to 1,750, 3,500, or 7,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format³

The newer iOSs take more storage space so the number of songs will be reduced.

According to Apple, the 8GB iPod can hold up to 2,000 songs, up to 7,000 photos, up to 8 hours of video.🙂

It depends on the song's file size. Average is about 5MB.

Right or control click any song in your iTunes library then click Get Info.

You can see file size there.

If you connect the iPod to your computer then launch iTunes. if you click any of the tabs, Summary, Music, Photos, etc., you'll see the storage and capacity at the bottom of that window.

It depends on a number of factors such as how each song was encoded, the bit rate for each song, and the length for each song. Two songs that were encoded the same with the same bit rate - everything equal except one song is 5 minutes in length and the other 4 minutes, the 5 minute song will take up more storage space. Apple's claims are based on all songs being encoded the same with the same bit rate and all songs being 4 minutes in length. And with no other iTunes content transferred - no podcasts, no movies or tv shows, and no photos transferred from your computer, you can transfer more songs but there is not an exact number.

I called Apple and the customer service person said up to 1,200 songs. I thought that was a lot but that is if you have no apps or no photos just music the person said 1,200 but if you have about 100 photos or 20 vids and 40 apps you can have about 300 songs my guess

That depends on several things. Every thing (songs, podcasts, pictures, apps, or what ever) takes up memory space.

Second, every song is different and as such no 2 songs will take up exactly the same amount of memory.

There fore, determining how many songs will fit will depend on the song lengths and how much "free" memory you have to work with....

That depends on the format and lenghth, but 1,500 songs or so is reasonable.

Inflated marketing.

There is another thread that had more technical and link probably to different file formats. And 800 high quality audio files of 3-4 minutes each.

$80 extra for 4x the capacity