The iPhone Is More Powerful
The 2019 iPod touch has been upgraded to an A10 Fusion processor. This is a big jump forward from older touches, and no doubt helps improve speed and performance for the iPod. The iPhone 7 also uses an A10 Fusion chip. Interestingly, the older iPhone 7 does significantly better in performance benchmarks than the iPod touch.
That means an older, more complicated device is better optimized for the A10 than the brand new iPod that was just released. We’re not sure how this can happen (it certainly doesn’t speak well of the touch’s design), but the iPhone 7 simply has better performance than the 2019 touch. Odd, but it makes choosing between them even easier.