Small, looks great, durable, huge storage, lots of features .
Disadvantages:
Has to be charged via USB, though AC adaptors are available separately .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
First things first, this thing is tiny. I mean, seriously minuscule. According to Apple it is 0.26 of an inch thin and weighs just 1.41 ounces -seriously, I often forget this little beauty is even in my pocket. When I unpackaged it I was half-expecting it not to work because I thought the battery must have been left out - that's how light it is. This is of course one of the iPod Nano's best features - you can take it anywhere. It easily slips into a pocket leaving no unsightly bulge, it's thin enough that if you sit down with it in a back pocket it's not uncomfortable, you can slip it into your handbag or backpack without wasting space - a friend of mine even keeps his in his wallet! Granted, it's a pretty big wallet but still - that's portability!
While its diminutive size was a big factor in my purchase of the iPod Nano, the largest selling point was of course the huge range of features this music player has to offer. For one thing, 4GB is a lot of space - Apple boasts that this is about 1000 songs, and at first I laughed, thinking they must be very testing it with very low-quality files, but no! I can get around that many high-quality MP3 files onto the iPod, and there is no noticeable slowing of the system or anything like that, either. The battery takes around 3 hours to charge and lasts for days, even when it is being used a lot.
A lot of people worry about buying an iPod because of the widely held rumour that one can only use it with music files bought from the Apple store, and only using iTunes. I have first hand experience that this is not true - my home computer runs Ubuntu Linux with an open-source media player called amaroK, and it recognises my iPod immediately, allowing me to transfer files of various types from various sources - none of which are from the iTunes store, I can tell you! I have a lot of friends who have had similar experiences - when you get right down to it, the iPod is basically a glorified flash drive, and no special software or file types are needed. Just plug your device into the USB port on your computer and I can guarantee that you will either have something which will work with it, or that something will be available for free to let you do so.
The iPod's display is great - 1.5" with a resolution of 176 x 132, large enough for photo displays and slide shows, and for text to be clear and readable. It is also wonderfully crisp and bright, with a user interface which follows the minimalist, sleek design of the iPod itself. The menus are intuitive and easy to use - they follow a simple staggered design which makes it easy to quickly find whatever it is you're looking for. You can browse your music by artist, composer, album, song, genre or playlist, or set it onto a shuffle mode which will play random tracks to you, which is fantastic if you're the sort of person who, like me, plays one album over and over again and forgets they own any other music!
As well as music and photo storage, the iPod Nano has lots of other features to keep you happy. It works as a sort of personal organiser, with a world clock including alarm, a calendar and a contacts list for you to store phone numbers, email addresses etc - I've found this useful on more than one occasion when my mobile phone battery has died, I need to get in contact with someone but I can't remember their phone number! There's also a good but simple collection of games, including a personalised quiz about the music currently on your iPod, and everyone's favourite, Solitaire - which has whiled away many a boring journey for me!
I am seriously impressed with this little beauty; I am even considering cycling to work instead of car-sharing just so I can use it more without being antisocial! It's big enough to do everything you want it to and more, while being small enough to be portable and affordable. I would definitely recommend giving the iPod Nano a try.
More details
Video Quality
Quite Helpful / Understandable
Durability
Good
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