INTRODUCTION
With so many products on the market, it can be difficult to make a decision about which product to actually spend your hard-working money on. There are so many music players to choose from that it's near impossible to not feel totally overwhelmed; but with companies like Apple out there, it's usually the iPods which flood the market. iPods are everywhere, and are hugely popular. There is a reason for that popularity: iPod's are the best music players available. They are priced reasonably, they look good, they have great sound quality...and the most important part being that they do their main job superbly: playing music. They're reliable players which won't let you down - and here is my review, which will hopefully give you an idea as to what to expect from your iPod Nano 8GB 4th generation, and will hopefully sway you into making a worthy purchase.
== THE iPOD NANO - COLOURS, PRICES, AND STORAGE CAPACITIES ==
The iPod Nano comes in nine colours - orange, yellow, purple, blue, green, pink, silver, black, and red - the red being a special edition, giving a donation from every purchase to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. So, in other words, if you buy the red iPod Nano, you're not only getting an excellent music player, but you're also helping to combat AIDS in Africa, which is a huge bonus. I personally loved the red colour of the iPod anyway, but when I learned that by buying it Apple would make a donation from my purchase, I was even happier to go with that colour.
The colours are particularly vibrant. I love how you can choose out of nine colours - it's much better than the black, silver and white which iPod's usually tend to be. However, I'm not complaining about owning black and white iPods - I see them as the 'classic' iPod colours, but nevertheless I was pleased to see Apple introducing so many new choices. The best thing about this has to be that you can choose whatever colour iPod you wish; the one which best fits your personality. I'm quite sure Apple were targeting the younger audience such as teenagers when releasing these iPods, and I think they're mostly popular amongst that age range. With the bright, lively colours, I would also recommend them to be used by children (once they were at an age to understand how to use one, and of course if you were willing to pay a fairly expensive amount for an MP3 player for your child).
The iPod Nano 8GB which I purchased cost me around £108, which I consider to be a very good price. My iPod Classic cost me £180 for 80GB storage capacity, so if you are looking to store plenty of music on your device, the iPod Nano mightn't be for you. You could spend a further amount of money and get much more storage if you are looking for a player to hold absolutely every song you own! However, you can also buy the iPod Nano 16GB, which costs around the £135 mark, so it's not much more expensive, but you get double storage. Personally, I wasn't too bothered about the storage. I bought this iPod Nano to be used simply for working out at the gym and my 'favourite songs' - in other words, my other iPod with the large capacity holds every song on my computer, whereas this iPod Nano with its smaller capacity has the songs on it which I REALLY like, and therefore don't have to skip over songs I don't particularly want to listen to - I can just let it run and play on 'shuffle' mode. 16GB would be enough storage for loads of songs and some TV episodes, but with an 8GB, you're fairly limited to what you can put on the iPod. I have plenty of songs on mine and it's nowhere near full, but if you have well over a few thousand songs, you're best off looking at a higher GB iPod (such as the Classics, which have 160GB).
THE iPOD NANO'S DESIGN
I personally wasn't keen on the third generation iPod Nano, with the chunky 'square' design with the large screen. It could be fairly tricky to operate, especially if you have very small hands, and some users became frustrated having to use two hands to operate it. But, the 3rd generation wasn't all that bad - it had a bigger screen than the old iPod Nano's, and I personally love the big screens. I'm the sort of person who doesn't care how large devices are; I prefer products like these to have big, clear screens, and the 3rd Gen iPod Nano did have this, but it was just too square and bulky for me.
The new iPod Nano 4th Gen, however, is very thin and svelte, looking a lot more pleasing to the eye. Not only does it have those beautifully vibrant colours, but it also boasts a very good sized screen, which takes up around half of the player. The remaining half is taken up by the trademark 'clickwheel', which is incredibly easy to operate. 'Touch' models (where you operate everything using your fingers) have become increasingly popular over the last 2 years, but I hope iPod retain its clickwheel in most of its models, as I personally am not keen on touch screens, and much prefer to feel in control by using the clickwheel. It's sensitive to the touch and by rolling your fingers around the circle of the wheel allows you to navigate yourself up and down the different menus, and there are the 'pause/play' buttons and the 'menu' button, too. The iPod itself is made from aluminium, and Apple have thankfully done away with the mirror on the back. On previous models, iPod's have always had a silver metal casing on the reverse, which notoriously attracts fingermarks and scratches, whereas aluminium covers the entire iPod Nano, leaving it smooth and fingermark-proof. I can safely and honestly tell you that I have now had this iPod Nano for 7 months and there's not a single scratch on it - but then again, I have been keeping it obsessively inside a protective case, so that may be why! But I took care of my other iPods too, but they ALWAYS attracted scratches and fingermarks - terrible! The engraving on the back would soon be invisible thanks to the scratches, so I was more than relieved to see no sign of the silver metal on the Nano.
I cannot express to you how thin and light this device is! It's incredible. I had heard it was light, but when holding it in my local Apple store, I could hardly believe how light it truly is - it barely weighs more than a feather! Now, this is the reason why I like to use it whilst at the gym. I thought about buying one of their iPod Shuffles, but with no menu on them, I wanted something I could have more control over, but I still wanted something extremely light. The iPod Nano 4th Gen fits the bill perfectly. It has all the usual features iPods have, but it's literally only a few millimetres thick - very impressive! The actual shape is rather hard to describe - it's more like an oval shape when you look down onto the top of it (where the 'hold' switch is on the top), as it's curved rather than with sharp edges. This makes it look even more attractive - it's not sharp at the edges, just has a nice, rounded look to it. Gorgeous!
The screen is rounded, rather than flat. This, somehow, makes the images even more crystal clear, BUT it does attract glare from the sun. Still, it's not a huge problem, and doesn't deflect from the fact the strong colours and picture quality is superb.
SOUND QUALITY
Clearly, the sound quality of any music player is an absolute must to review, and the iPod Nano scores highly. I have had a few problems with iPods before, where I'd have to replace the Apple earphones to receive higher volume, but with the iPod Nano the volume is high enough for most users with the included Apple earphones. The sound is crystal clear and even though I'm no expert on earphones, the Apple ones are more than sufficient. I've had the iPod, as I've said, for seven months now, and I'm not looking to replace them any time soon.
SHAKING THE iPOD TO CHANGE TRACKS
Personally, I really dislike this feature. Apple, I am sure, included it as an interesting feature which sounds good and is fun for a short while, but then becomes increasingly annoying. Basically, you can 'shake' your iPod to flick between tracks. It sounds great, and it IS intelligent, but is there any real point to it? I'm not so sure. It's not such a good feature when just by flicking your wrist you are changing tracks - in fact, it can get rather annoying.
I think after a few goes of shaking it to change tracks, you'll get bored of this feature and go back to the easier, more simple way of changing songs - by quickly clicking on the clickwheel. I think iPod's are all about simplicity, and about doing things with ease, whereas this shaking system, for me, just makes it more...well, time-consuming. So I don't use this feature myself, but as I've said, it's an intelligent piece of technology, and some users will no doubt find it fascinating.
By the way, you can de-activate this shaking system by turning on the 'hold' switch, or by de-activating it via the 'settings' menu in the iPod.
iTUNES, AND PUTTING MUSIC ONTO YOUR iPOD
If you are going to buy an iPod, you need to buy iTunes. Some people, such as my Dad for instance, didn't understand that iTunes isn't just something which some users wish to download for fun - it's actually a necessity. If you want to put music, films, photos on your iPod, you need iTunes. It's totally free and you can download it off Apple's official website.
At first, I wasn't so sure about iTunes. I liked with my other music players the 'drag and drop' system, where you could open the MP3's music file and your own music files from your computer and just drop them into the folder. It was easy, simple, took a couple of seconds and was done. However, with no 'drag and drop' for iPods, it's a little more difficult, and can be quite complex, too. This is where I think iPod's falter a little. Some people would love to own an iPod but just can't be bothered to sit and work their way through learning how to use iTunes. Really, it's not that difficult, and once you've used it a few times, it's actually simple, but for some people the thought of using an iPod can be daunting enough without having to then learn about using iTunes!
With iTunes, you can download music at a reasonable price, although recently I've noticed that songs used to be £0.79p (in the UK) but some are now £0.99p. You can pay either by using your credit card or through vouchers, which you can purchase at most supermarkets, for example. TV episodes are around £1.80, games are around £4 and they also sell films (prices fluctuate, so I won't give definite prices). I personally wouldn't purchase movies to watch on the iPod Nano - the screen, despite being bigger than on previous nano's - just isn't large enough, but you can buy equipment which connects the iPod to your television, and therefore you could watch your bought iTunes films on your TV. iTunes also sell 'Podcasts' for free, which are usually highlights of shows, but you can get some revision podcasts which can be really helpful if you are coming up to your exams and just want to do some extra bits whilst out and about.
Music videos, films and TV programmes all play well on the iPod Nano, the best part being you can flip the Nano on it's side to view the programmes in 'wide-screen', which makes viewing them a little more pleasing, but as I've said before, the screen isn't really large enough to watch it comfortably, but the picture quality is fantastic, so it's not too much of a problem. What IS a problem, though, is the clickwheel when the Nano is turned on its side. It just makes it quite awkward to operate, but is fairly simple to get used to after you've used it on its side a few times.
The best part about using iTunes is that it allows you to organise your music perfectly. You can make sure songs stay within one album even if the artist has had several albums, make sure it has the correct album artwork, and generally just make sure everything is where you want it to be.
It should also be noted that you can put ANY music at all on your iPod - you DON'T have to buy it from iTunes. Some people think that just because they need to use iTunes to use their iPod they need to purchase from the iTunes store, but this simply isn't true. You can put music from your own CDs on to the iPod and also music you already have on your computer, even if it's downloaded from other sites (although I'm not by any means promoting illegal downloading of music) - you can use all of it, just import your CDs into iTunes (by clicking a button at the bottom of the iTunes page once your CD is in) and it will be ready to put on your iPod.
COVERFLOW
I don't use this feature, but basically 'coverflow' shows the front covers of all your albums on your iPod. By scrolling with the clickwheel, you can search through your albums until you find the one you're looking for. By clicking on that album cover, it will 'flip' over and show you the list of songs within that album, as though you've turned the album cover over by hand. It's clever and, like the shake feature, is great the first few times you use it, but then you find there are easier ways to get to your albums by going through your menu's, rather than using coverflow. I do like the feature because I like to scroll through all my albums, but I use it very rarely. Still, some people might use the coverflow solely to locate their albums, but personally, I just find it a bit too time-consuming.
BATTERY LIFE
I've had no problems with the battery life; I don't use my iPod constantly throughout the day, but I DO use it for a fair amount of time each day, and it lasts a good few days or so. The iPod comes with a USB charger, so you can charge it via your laptop/PC. An easier way is to purchase a mains charger, which means you can just plug it in and charge it quickly, without having to switch the PC/laptop on and do it that way (we all like an easier life!). Apple doesn't sell these with the iPod, which I find a little disappointing. I've recently purchased a BlackBerry Bold 9000 (and have reviewed it on here, check my reviews if you want to read about it) and it came with both a mains adapter AND a USB charger. But instead, you have to buy them - but they aren't too expensive.
Obviously, if you're watching films etc the battery life goes down quicker, but this is the same with most devices. If my iPod is very close to being totally out of battery (I've never let it completely run out), then to charge it back to full power only takes a couple of hours or so. Battery life isn't a problem with the iPod Nano which I'm surprised at - I thought it would have drained out of battery fairly quickly thanks to it's small, thin size, but it holds itself very well.
GENIUS
If you have an older iPod and don't have the 'Genius' feature on the actual device, you will probably have seen it in iTunes. The 'Genius' feature on iTunes literally tells you what songs you are likely to enjoy, by using information from other songs in your iTunes library. So, for example, if you like Britney Spears and Madonna, it might bring up that you'd like a song by Shakira or Chistina Aguilera, for example. I really like it, because more often or not, what songs they suggest I'd like, I do actually end up liking.
With the iPod Nano, a Genius feature comes with it. Click on a song you like, and the iPod will generate a playlist for you with that song and other songs which go well with it. I find it clever, but I usually prefer to make playlists myself. By the way, if you don't know what a playlist is, it's basically where you put together songs which go well within a particular group, e.g. 'Songs for when I go to the gym', or 'Relaxing songs'. The Genius feature DOES work and 9 times out of 10 puts songs together which go well with each other, but I prefer to do it manually, because I like the sense of being in control over it, rather than my iPod telling me what it wants me to hear! However, the best thing about it is that it's a very quick way of generating a playlist of 25 tracks - if you can't be bothered to sit there and make a playlist, then hold down the centre button over a song you want it to 'work around' and it'll do it for you in a matter of seconds. You can't complain about that, can you?
FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS...
One of the best things about the iPod Nano is that it will 'talk' to you. If you are visually impaired, or are wanting to buy a music player for someone who is, then the iPod Nano is great. You will have to activate the feature through iTunes (easily done), but then the iPod will read out to you your menu options, etc. This makes it a lot easier for those who hate having to strain their eyes to view the screen, but I must admit I haven't used this feature (luckily, my eyesight is fine, so I don't like to use anything unnecessary). However, there will be plenty of iPod users who will rejoice at this helpful feature, and truthfully it was about time iPod catered for people who need extra help with their products. With such small iPods such as this, they are only really being used by people who can use them with ease. Now, with this added feature, it keeps iPod way ahead of its competitors!
THE APPLE SHOP
I bought my iPod Nano 8GB 4th Gen from the Apple shop in my city centre. Brilliant shop, great customer service, with loads of accessories to buy if you wish to buy any further products for your new iPod.
OVERALL
Overall, I love this iPod. It has its downsides - the screen can attract glare, the storage capacity reaches a maximum at 16GB, but the good definitely outweighs the bad! Here is a final list of the iPod's strong points against its weaker points:
GOOD POINTS
- It's thin, lightweight (around 35g, which is incredible)
- The picture quality is crystal clear
- Great sound quality from Apple earphones (included)
- Great battery life
- Range of features
- Caters for those who are visually impaired
- The range of colours!
- No fingerprints or scratches at all after 7 months of owning this iPod
- Buy a red Nano = gives money to charity!
- Has plenty of features
- The screen size mightn't be huge but it's big enough to still allow the Nano to look small and thin
BAD POINTS
- Is £108 a fair price for an 8GB player? I'm not so sure. I think £108 isn't a price which will leave a huge dent in your wallet/purse for what you get for the money, but 8GB is small compared to what Apple also sell. They do a 180GB (that's 172GB more space!!) for around £60 more, with the same features, just with much more storage space.
- Attracts glare from the sun (but, in its defence, most players do!)
- Doesn't come with a mains charger, you have to buy it at an extra cost
- The shaking system, where you can tilt it to change track, is an intelligent feature but a slightly pointless one
- You have to use iTunes - you are limited to simply using iTunes and iTunes ONLY. Some people love it, some people hate it. I personally think it's Ok
- You can't really watch movies/TV episodes on the screen - it's a little too small to watch things comfortably
As you can see, the good points definitely override the bad points when it comes to the iPod Nano 8GB 4th Gen. There are some things Apple could improve on with the next Nano they bring out, but then again it's VERY rare something is completely flawless! I'm very happy with the iPod Nano - it does its job more than well - and I'm sure 7 months down the line I made the right choice buying this player. I hope after reading this review you will be more clued up about owning an iPod Nano 4th Gen and that it will help you into making a purchase I am pretty sure you won't regret!
Thanks for reading, have a good day.
Sonic4290
FINALLY, A QUICK NOTE ABOUT THE RED iPOD
Just thought it is worth saying that red iPods are ONLY available online at Apple's official website, or at their Apple stores. Other colours are available in shops all over the country.
