To say I feel honoured is an understatement, but when I took the new 2nd generation iPod Nano out of the shipping box my jaw dropped. The new transparent packaging is fantastic and I now know why Steve Jobs mentioned it in his keynote. Not thinking my jaw could get any lower I removed the Nano from its’ packaging and was once again amazed at how much sleeker it felt than the previous generation.
This is my first review where I just felt that I wanted to give you two pages (or more) of high resolution photographs. They say ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ and with the new Nano those words could not be more fitting. The case of the Nano is now all anodised aluminium and is so nice to touch, a real smooth feel, no worries about fingerprints either, which is fantastic news. Colours have been introduced with the 2Gb model being available in silver only, the 4Gb being available in silver, green, blue and pink, and the new higher capacity 8Gb model in a sexy black. All have this wicked metallic look.
Back to the packaging a moment, before I tell you even more about the latest Nano. I always trump on and on about the ‘Apple buying experience’ and yet again, unpacking this baby is no different, everything is packaged impeccably, the iPod lifts out and you are presented with two fold out pieces of card, which reveal a tiny quick start booklet, the new style headphones, usb connector and dock adapter. All so neatly positioned you wonder just how they do it.
Now, back to the Nano, and connecting it to my Mac for the first time presented me with a software update, which I installed, then left it charging a little while before syncing with my iTunes application.
I already own a 60Gb iPod myself, so my iTunes library is quite large, so when I connected the Nano, iTunes warned me that my library would not all fit and gave me the option of the application creating a Nano playlist for me, I took this option for speed and let iTunes select the songs for me. The actually capacity for files on the 4Gb silver model I am reviewing is 3.68Gb, the remainder being taken up with system files etc. So I set the files transferring and it pushed 698 MP3’s across to the Nano in about 12 minutes, which to me is totally acceptable. I made a few changes to the playlist and re-synced and was ready to play... to download the full review click here.
Product supplied by Apple UK.
Retail price: £129.00 (4Gb model)
Contact: 0800 039 1010
Link to product.