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Finally, a black iPod without Bono's signature! Apple has given the boot to the iPod mini, slimming it down even further to the width of a pencil. It's name, the iPod Nano. This time, Apple replaced the micro-HDD with NAND flash memory, implemented 1.5" color LCD, and released a host of accessories, such as the lanyard earphones & silicone "tubes".
Apple iPod nano 4GB ReviewSeptember 12th, 2005
Pros: Slim; intuitive; under-rated 15-hour battery; vivid color LCD; rich sound; games; now works with Outlook; skip-free; fast write times; no need for partitioning to use as USB Mass Storage Device.
Cons: Non-replaceable battery; no FM/voice/line-in recorder; doesn't replace 6GB iPod mini's storage capacity.
Verdict: Slim, stylish, and fully loaded, the iPod nano is a great deal for a flash-based MP3 player.
Update (09/25/06): We've reviewed the new second generation of iPod nano 8GB. The late 2006 version is largely a bug fix, such as putting back the aluminium case, boosting battery life and providing a better screen.
In a move that surprised everyone (and caught the rumor sites off-guard), Apple has replaced their entire line of iPod minis with a new player featuring Samsung's NAND Flash memory for storage. The result? An incredibly slim 4GB iPod nano boasting a vibrant color LCD display, longer battery life, and a few other tweaks to result in an extraordinary MP3 player. Let's take a look.
Package Contents: - iPod nano
- Earbuds
- USB 2.0 Dock Connector
- Dock adapter
- Installer CD
- QuickStart guide
- 2 White Apple Stickers
Smooth and Shiny Following the tradition of the iPod, the iPod nano's casing is very smooth, complete with rounded edges and no screws or extruding parts with the exception of the hold switch. The reflective metal backing smoothly transitions into the acrylic face of the nano, polished so well that you can see your reflection. In a word, the iPod nano is beautiful.
Being beautiful has its share of disadvantages however. The moment you peel off the plastic skins off, the surface is desecrated from the oily smudges of fingerprints clearly visible in direct sunlight. They rub off with a shirt just fine, but it's a bit disheartening to see so many smudges on such a fine piece of hardware. Also, to keep the smooth, seamless appeal of the iPod nano, no battery compartments are accessible for changing, so as soon as it runs out of juice you can't swap in a new pack, and when the lithium ion cell is worn and tired, it'll need to be sent in for replacing like all the other iPods.
Back to the appearance, the color is also something to note. While the classic pearl white color scheme is the poster child for the iPod nano, for the first time a jet black version is available. Black! Light just falls into it. True, the iPod U2 comes in black, but this doesn't have a red wheel or Bono's signature, 'nuff said.
Thin for the Win At 3.5" x 1.6" x 0.25", the nano is one of the smallest players on the market today. Despite the small form factor, at 4GB the iPod nano holds more than any other flash player out there, and comes in a package nearly a third the size of other MP3 players with the same storage capacity. True to Steve Jobs' keynote, the nano fits perfectly in the inner pant pocket, making it just as easy to carry as all the other daily oddities.
Since carrying it around, I've received several remarks about how quickly this thing is going to break based on its slim design. Now, that hasn't happened yet (knocks on wood), but rest assured the nano actually feels quite sturdy. Giving it a quick two finger and thumb squeeze test, only the LCD screen pushed inwards when subjected to pressure. Considering how recessed into the acrylic the LCD is, it would seem fairly protected. I proceeded to use both hands and two thumbs to subject pressure as if the nano would snap in half, but the firm case wouldn't even flex the slightest. In these respects, the nano is quite rugged for day to day use without too much thought of protection, although scratches can pose a problem.
Keeping Pace with the Thumbs Strange as it may seem considering my preference of iTunes, I've never really used an iPod before. I've tinkered with them at stores, and that's about it. Until now I've just been using competing devices from Samsung, iRiver, and Creative. While each player is strong in its own right, the control styles had some annoying flaws that required getting used to.
The joystick control requires holding it in a single direction and rely on timing as opposed to sensitivity, while the control strips on the iRiver H10 and Creative Zen Micro, albeit touch sensitive, require lifting your thumb repeatedly for precise scrolling. On the contrary, the click wheel that the iPod nano borrows from the now-discontinued iPod mini just feels more natural to me. I can move my thumb in a circle continuously with the precision of a touch pad, and I don't have to stretch my thumb to click any buttons since they are literally right under the wheel.
While I appreciate the circular design of the click wheel, I think it is a tad oversensitive. You can zoom through playlists very quickly thanks to the wheel's acceleration, although I feel it kicks in too quickly and at first I was scrolling too far to find a specific song. Though I am used to it now, Apple should add a sensitivity setting to their firmware for people that like to take it slow.
The iPod nano's interface is very intuitive. While most readers probably know this by heart now, to navigate through items you just scroll to it and press the center button. To go up a menu, press menu. That's it! An unbelievably simple interface. A few things require memorization, like clicking the center button while in the Now Playing screen to change ratings or move the time slider and holding Play/Pause to turn off the nano, but those are all trivial. The main menu can also be customized to allow even quicker access to frequently used features such as the backlight and shuffle functions.
The Sounds Music on the iPod nano sounds brilliant. With the equalizer off, the treble is nice and crisp and the bass is deep, with ample room for the midtones. The amplifier of the nano is also nice, able to make me wince when a pair of 40mm Altec Lansing AHS-502s. The supplied earbud headphones are quite comfortable and when used with the earbud covers stay in place while jogging although it may take a few attempts to get them situated correctly. The bass delivered is on the good side of decent for earbuds, and there is little distortion as the volume is increased. I couldn't test this at max volume, it was too loud. :)
If you're serious about your music, then you'll like how the iPod nano takes advantage of ID3 tags and it's iTunes counterpart. Songs retain their equalizer settings and automatically change the EQ of the nano. Album art is displayed next to the track information, and can be viewed by clicking the select button twice. Music can be sorted by playlists, artist, albums, songs and genres, with an additional Composers item for Classical lovers. Playlists can be created on-the-go by holding the select button on an artist, album or individual song. Tracks can be shuffled by album or song, and when shuffling, the entire playlist is automatically mapped out so a song is not repeated until all songs have been played. For those days where you can't decide which restaurant to eat at let alone the playlist to listen to, there's a Shuffle Songs feature that randomizes the entire library and instantly starts playing it, and it's right on the first menu.
Road warriors will love the iPod nano's long battery life for long trips. Surprisingly, a not-so-quick test shows that Apple underrated the nano's battery life at 14 hours. Playing back 128kbps AACs and MP3s at 60% volume without skipping through tracks, minimal use of the backlighting, and one game of solitaire, the iPod nano lasted just under 15 hours taking 14:56 to die.
The Sights The color LCD of the iPod nano is extremely sharp at 176x132 and a dot pitch of 0.168mm. Colors are vibrant and text is sharp, giving a great impression of the Mac's Aqua theme. Photos synchronized to the iPod mini are automatically optimized for the small screen before transfer, and look just as colorful as they do on my CRT. Dark shades seemed to get slightly pixelated, although this is common amongst small LCDs. (Actually, the photos on the iPod nano look better than on my old PowerBook G3 Pismo.)
I love how the photo library itself was implemented too. When synchronizing, you're able to choose one folder from your computer and either nab all the pictures from that, or a select few folders within it in your preferred order. Once all the AACs and MP3s have transferred during synchronization, photos will be transferred in the order specified until the iPod runs out of space.
Once on the iPod, you can browse all the pictures at once, or by the subfolders within your sync folder. A small 4x3 matrix of thumbnails shows, with the month and year each picture was taken displayed at the top of the screen. Scrolling through the photos is extremely quick, taking about 3 seconds to go through the 145 photos I have stored. Pictures can also be played in slideshow format for showing to friends, and can be customized from the music played in the background to shuffling and changing the time and transitions between slides.
nano Extras Within the Extras menu of the iPod nano are several nifty features you may or may not use. A world clock can hold over twenty different time zones at once, each with their own alarm clock and sleep timer settings. The face of the clock also switches between white and black white to black to indicate if it's day or not.
Other new features specific to the iPod nano include a stopwatch that saves the statistics and lap times of each session, and an unresponsive screen lock to lock the iPod with a 4-digit combination, although be warned you can't skip tracks with it enabled.
Games, where would I be without them? The iPod nano comes with four games - Brick (Breakout), Parachute, Solitaire, and Music Quiz, the latter of which is my favorite. A random clip of a song is played, and you have to quickly guess which song it is before the time runs out. The faster you are, the more points you get. The other games are just as fun, but I'm convinced that Brick cheats when I make shots with the edge of the paddle. :P
Personal contacts and calendars can be automatically synchronized via iTunes from Address Book and iCal on the Mac, and PC users from Outlook Express and Outlook. Calendar syncing from Outlook is a new thing I'm told, although I'm not a big fan of the product so I never use it. I do however like the simple calendar program, Sunbird, that the Mozilla Foundation has been working on, and am happy to say that the .ICS files generated by it are compatible with those of iCal, and can thus be manually dragged into the Calendars folder of the iPod and still work flawlessly. I've automated the entire process with a batch script. A simpler approach of just jotting down the important notes in a text file and dropping it in the iPod's Notes folder is also available.
USB 2.0 Mass Storage One of the things I've always envied about the iPod was it's ability to be used as a Mass Storage Device without partitioning, and the iPod nano is no exception. Once enabled in iTunes, the nano can be plugged into any computer to show up as an external drive for copying term papers, spreadsheets, and just about anything else you can think of without taking too much space away from the MP3s.
File transfer speeds on the iPod nano are somewhat strange. The write speed (77 Mbps) is slightly more than double the read speed (34 Mbps), which is great for uploading music and photos, but not so great for running applications and games from the nano. SiSoftware's Sandra gave the iPod nano an incredibly high endurance factor of 56.8, whereas the highest endurance factor that we've seen so far on a real flash drive is 21 for a DiskOnKey. In other words, data stored on the nano will probably last longer than the battery will. In a more real-world test, it took eighteen minutes to sync 859 songs totaling 3.7GB in order to fill the iPod nano almost to the brim.
SiSoftware Sandra
Benchmark Results
Combined Index : 10501 operation(s)/min
Endurance Factor : 56.8
512B Files Test : 18794 operation(s)/min
32kB Files Test : 6695 operation(s)/min
256kB Files Test : 1490 operation(s)/min
2MB Files Test : 186 operation(s)/min
64MB Files Test : 6 operation(s)/min
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Performance Test Status
Run ID : TWIG on Sunday, September 11, 2005 at 8:08:02 PM
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 1
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : No
Drive
Total Size : 3.7GB
Free Space : 3.7GB, 99%
Cluster Size : 4kB
The iPod Factor Once again Apple chose not to implement a FM tuner or voice recorder into their iPod. There's no line in recording. So with fewer features, one might think that the iPod nano should be cheaper than the competition (although 4GB at $250 ain't that bad either). The truth is that to many, those features don't matter as much. In the Orange County / Los Angeles area, there's no good rock stations, period. The only stations I can bear listening to are KLOS Classic Rock and KMZT Classical. The thing is, I already have many of the songs they play loaded onto the nano in AAC format, so it's not that big of a deal to me.
Outside of testing, I've never used the voice recorder to take notes with any other MP3 player. Line-in recording? The only place I can think of a use for that is at a music store, and I'm not about to steal music. As usual, your preferences may and probably will differ from mine, but this is just how I see things.
So what makes the iPod nano so compelling? The design. Time and time again Apple has taken effort to create a beautiful user interface, aesthetically pleasing hardware, and luxury features they don't bother putting on paper. For instance, the headphone jack of the iPod nano is autosensing, so if my headphones get caught on something and pull out, the player pauses. When I plug in the headphones, the nano instantly starts up paused. The slim form factor fits practically anywhere. Above all, the iPods are compatible with iTunes, making it easy to create smart playlists and just drag them over, not to mention it can play audiobooks and any of the countless tracks available for purchase from the iTunes Music Store.
Summary In conclusion, the iPod nano is a very slim player with an interface done right. The 15 hour battery life is amazing, audio is rich with deep bass, photos are vivid, and there's a few games to waste time at the doctor's office. Best of all, at $250 for 4GB of pure skip-free flash memory, it won't break the piggy bank. The iPod nano is heavily recommended.
- Scott Clark, Consumer Technology Editor
Where to buy Apple iPod nano 4GB?
User Review(s)
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. iPod nano 4GB Specs
Windows 2000, Windows XP, MacOS 10.4.x, MacOS 10.3.x
Dimensions
3.5" x 1.6" x 0.27"
Weight
1.5 oz.
Natively supported music format(s)
MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV
Signal to noise ratio
--
Battery life
14 hrs.
Storage
4GB built-in flash memory
Storage expansion type
None
FM tuner
No
Voice recording
No
Software
Apple iTunes 5
Remote included?
No
Inputs / outputs
Headphone jack
Extras?
--
Screen
1.5" 32k color LCD
Photo import?
--
Natively supported video format(s)
--
Max output
--
Line-in recording?
--
Power source
Built-in Li-ion battery rechargeable via USB port
Warranty
One year
Extras Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
Following the tradition of the iPod, the iPod nano's casing is very smooth, complete with rounded edges and no screws or extruding parts with the exception of the hold switch. The reflective metal backing smoothly transitions into the acrylic face of the nano, polished so well that you can see your reflection. In a word, the iPod nano is beautiful.
Being beautiful has its share of disadvantages however. The moment you peel off the plastic skins off, the surface is desecrated from the oily smudges of fingerprints clearly visible in direct sunlight. They rub off with a shirt just fine, but it's a bit disheartening to see so many smudges on such a fine piece of hardware. Also, to keep the smooth, seamless appeal of the iPod nano, no battery compartments are accessible for changing, so as soon as it runs out of juice you can't swap in a new pack, and when the lithium ion cell is worn and tired, it'll need to be sent in for replacing like all the other iPods.
Strange as it may seem considering my preference of iTunes, I've never really used an iPod before. I've tinkered with them at stores, and that's about it. Until now I've just been using competing devices from Samsung, iRiver, and Creative. While each player is strong in its own right, the control styles had some annoying flaws that required getting used to.
If you're serious about your music, then you'll like how the iPod nano takes advantage of ID3 tags and it's iTunes counterpart. Songs retain their equalizer settings and automatically change the EQ of the nano. Album art is displayed next to the track information, and can be viewed by clicking the select button twice. Music can be sorted by playlists, artist, albums, songs and genres, with an additional Composers item for Classical lovers. Playlists can be created on-the-go by holding the select button on an artist, album or individual song. Tracks can be shuffled by album or song, and when shuffling, the entire playlist is automatically mapped out so a song is not repeated until all songs have been played. For those days where you can't decide which restaurant to eat at let alone the playlist to listen to, there's a Shuffle Songs feature that randomizes the entire library and instantly starts playing it, and it's right on the first menu.
I love how the photo library itself was implemented too. When synchronizing, you're able to choose one folder from your computer and either nab all the pictures from that, or a select few folders within it in your preferred order. Once all the AACs and MP3s have transferred during synchronization, photos will be transferred in the order specified until the iPod runs out of space.
Within the Extras menu of the iPod nano are several nifty features you may or may not use. A world clock can hold over twenty different time zones at once, each with their own alarm clock and sleep timer settings. The face of the clock also switches between white and black white to black to indicate if it's day or not.
Games, where would I be without them? The iPod nano comes with four games - Brick (Breakout), Parachute, Solitaire, and Music Quiz, the latter of which is my favorite. A random clip of a song is played, and you have to quickly guess which song it is before the time runs out. The faster you are, the more points you get. The other games are just as fun, but I'm convinced that Brick cheats when I make shots with the edge of the paddle. :P
Personal contacts and calendars can be automatically synchronized via iTunes from Address Book and iCal on the Mac, and PC users from Outlook Express and Outlook. Calendar syncing from Outlook is a new thing I'm told, although I'm not a big fan of the product so I never use it. I do however like the simple calendar program, Sunbird, that the Mozilla Foundation has been working on, and am happy to say that the .ICS files generated by it are compatible with those of iCal, and can thus be manually dragged into the Calendars folder of the iPod and still work flawlessly. I've automated the entire process with a batch script. A simpler approach of just jotting down the important notes in a text file and dropping it in the iPod's Notes folder is also available.
