Apple iPod nano Description and Review

What's right with the iPod nano?

It's pretty. It's slim and light - a sleek looking design. It uses the same kind of user interface Apple users love to use and it comes with many brag worthy features, including: Colour screen - yes a colour screen for browsing your tunes and for displaying your photos on. Good software that allows all kinds of photo display shenanigans, such as slide shows. Brilliant.

The fact that the 2 or 4GBs are made up of RAM instead of a hard disk, or mini hard disk , means that the music is 'shock proof'. I.e. you can run and jump and play without the music skipping and jumping from place to place, or even just stopping completely - solid state players like the iPod nano will play on.

It combines the functions of the iPod photo with the small, slim lightweight design of the iPod mini. A surefire home-run for Apple.

The battery will last for 14 hours continuous playback. The iPod nano's battery is still locked-in to the casing, but at least the battery life issues of a few years ago seem to have improved with time, so hopefully that shouldn't cause too many problems for the nano.

All the user friendly features and functions you could want, but that is not the story of the nano. This is:

What's wrong with the iPod nano?

The first thing that most people say when they see the iPod nano. is 'oooh' or 'aaaah'.

The first thing that was said here at dukebox.com was - it's the wrong shape. The egg head that came out with that show stopper followed it up with '... I mean for the materials they used. It's obviously going to bend or crack ... along the middle ... and probably along the screen. It's too long for its thickness ... or lack thereof'.

Unfortunately he was right.

Or at least so we thought at the time. Since then we have had no confirmed reports of any of the below problems. We were wrong: the nano has not been reported bending or snapping like a twig. We have, however, left this information here just to show that we're not afraid of being accountable. Let the errors begin.

What's brown and sticky? A stick. What's long and thin and snaps like a twig? Anything that's long and thin that doesn't have the tensile strength to stop acting as a lever against itself - the same way a twig does when you snap it.

This shape of an iPod nano would work, if the entire product casing was made of Titanium, or, steel. Any rigid metal with enough elasticity to cope with the stresses induced by this long-and-thin shape. Twenty quid says that the original design was all metal, but someone - possibly an accountant - decided that a 100% markup per player in the UK wasn't enough for Apple, and that we'd all be better off with lower grade materials. At least on one side of the player.

It's well worth noting that all the other players with similar dimensions - i.e. long and skinny (without even being as long and skinny as this player) are all metal: the Archos Gmini XS 100 ; Creative MuVo Nx ; even Apple's own iPod mini 4 and 6GB models, for Gods' sakes.

Physics could strike twice on the same player as the differing thermal properties of the metal/ plastic fascia on such a skinny player could cause thermal bending. When you heat things they expand. Different materials expand at different rates. If a player's casing is all made from the same material, its case will all expand at the same rate. If 2 or more materials are used that shouldn't cause too big a problem, unless they form a long thin strip, with one material forming each long-flat side of that strip in which case you may inadvertently make something that acts like a bi-metallic strip - even if one of the materials is not metallic!

To recap basic science lessons: a bi-metallic strip will bend when warmed. Click here for the full hardcore science description of a bi-metallic strip. It can be summarised thus: metal side gets hot and expands rapidly, plastic side expands slower. Now the metal side is (marginally) physically longer than plastic side, but they are bonded together by screws and interlocking parts. The only way that the nana can remain bonded is by bending so that the metal back side forms the outside (the long side) of the arc. The opposite would happen in cold weather, whereby the nano's metal side would contract faster, casing the front side of the nana to form the outside of the arc.

This would put additional structural stress on a player we believe to be structurally vulnerable.

It's also worth noting that Apple claim that the screen problems have only affected 1 tenth of 1% of the players. They claim that its as a result of secondary sourced materials and as such will not effect 99.99% of iPod Nanos made.

We're going to stick our necks out again and call this 2 material/ long-thin-shape combo a design flaw - most likely one not in the original design - that will effect all nana's eventually. The ones that have showed up as problems have done so within a few weeks of normal use. How do you think this long and thin design will cope with a year of normal use if some materials cannot cope with a month?

Having said all that ...

The iPod nano is .. we hesitate to say in case people take this literally, but the iPod nano is virtually indestructible*. i.e. despite the fact that the screen may crack or the facsia may scrape and scratch easily, or even that the unit may end up bending when hot, the iPod nano will not stop playing.

Similar to the Black Knight ("None Shall Pass") form the excellent Monty Python's The Holy Grail, the units will fight-on despite being maimed and mauled. The lines that would sum up the Nano would be "'Tis but a scratch", "Just a flesh wound" and "I've had worse".

TV companies have driven over them, people have dropped them from heights, etc. They get scars that males would see as "character" and marine biologists would see as unique ID features, but they still play the music.

*from normal, responsible usage

New and absent features

Apparently, as we predicted back in 2002, there is a growing problem of MP3 player related muggings. Unbelievably a senior officer in the UK blamed the increase in muggings being because of the MP3 players - particularly the easily spotted white iPod earphones - not on the thugs who actually commit the crimes! He may have been taken out of context, but we cannot see how it can possibly be the fault of the victim.

The nano will help combat this unwelcome trend by the inclusion of security features: the Screen Lock, for which you can assign a 4 digit graphical code to stop the nano working in the hands of the enemy.

No radio, which is a crying shame. Every Jukebox should come with one as standard. No remote control - also wrong. No recording features neither, but it has all the calendar, contacts timer, etc. features that all iPods have, with one new bonus - the nano will sync-up with Windows now too, so you can take the Contacts and calendar from Outlook or Outlook Express, the Microsoft e-mail programs for all windows systems.

Another new feature is the stopwatch. In fact there are several chronological novelties including a world clock.

The nano is Apple's first medium capacity player to handle (display on screen in colour) Photos, and pretty much all the features, though not near the capacity, that the iPod Photo has. Also missing is the ability to pan and zoom around your photos, something which is present on most photo capable jukeboxes for a few years.

Autosync over FireWire is a surprise absence - the ability to automatically synchronise the contents (music) of your computer onto your iPod via the firewire connection. To autosync you must use the USB2.0 connection. The very notion would have been herreasy to Apple Fans when USB 2.0 was launched, but there it is, nevertheless.

Conclusion:

No doubt us pointing out the iPod nano's foibles to our customers will result in us being targeted once again by iPod disciples who insist that the iPod nano's build quality is better than any other player we sell. Indeed.

To their credit Apple have immediately said that they will replace any faulty nana's with a new one - although to be fair they should do that as a matter of course, but in the past Apple's "Customer Support" has left a lot to be desired.

To recap we beileve the Nano is a fantastic mid range Photo MP3 player with some design concerns. It will score and scratch. It may even bend.

If you're not sure about the iPod nano any more, check out the alternatives. In particular, if you're looking for something that does pretty much everything that the iPod nano does, including photo display and tricks, seamless integration with iTunes, iPod features, including actually being an iPod, you could look at the iPod photo, which is an accomplished player.

Is there any point in buying a nano? Hell Yes! It's a great little player. Lovely to look at and it does several big jobs brilliantly. If you can handle it with care then it will make an excellent purchase. It's entirely possible that we're not correct and that only a handful of iPod Nanos ever have structural problems. If we are wrong then everyone in the world should want to buy one of these. Even if we are entirely correct about the Nano's bendy nature, that doesn't make this a bad player.

If the design causes users huge problems then there may still be a compelling argument to buy one of these. If it is found to have some major structural flaws then the product will most likely be withdrawn. Just think what a turn-of-the-century original iPod nano that was in good condition would be worth in a few decades' time ... but thats not really why you should buy it. You should buy it because it's fun, it's beautiful and you want it.

If you do want to buy an iPod nano, select your model below. (Be sure to store it somewhere safe, not your pocket).

1st generation iPod nanos (the ones that this page refers to):

2nd Generation iPod Nanos (the newer models):