Guillotine

Apple’s iPod turned 7 years old today, and in celebration of the event I went out and purchased an iPod nano. This will be my first iPod as I’ve traditionally stuck to other brands like Creative Labs just to avoid being a sheep being led along with the herd. Not to mention the suckers are expensive.

I will say that I’ve had to endure my share of hardships because while always being anti-iPod I have always been a supporter of iTunes. Which means that my routine has been to download songs, burn them to audio CD, and then rip them back as non-DRM MP3s in order to load them onto my Zen.

So here’s a little review of Apple’s newest toy.

Thankfully the Nano has gone back to the slim design in this 4th generation. The square 3Gs always looked a bit goofy to me. The case is brushed aluminum available in a rainbow of colors (I opted for the standard silver). The two big differences on the outside are the larger screen which allows you to view wide screen video when turned on it’s side. The second feature is the curved profile while not being extremely useful it does give the unit a slick look.

As for the guts of the device. It uses the familiar click wheel to make selections. The one I have seems to be a bit more sensitive than I’d like, but I haven’t had a chance to see if there is an adjustment for that yet. The wide screen has a new twist… When held upright it will show the current song’s album artwork, but when you turn the unit sideways it switches to the scrolling album view… Pretty nifty. The larger screen also is amazingly clear for such a small size. Someone I was talking to commented “Who would want to watch video on a Nano.” Well… The Nano 4G actually does video quite well. The screen is clear and bright enough that even being 2″ it doesn’t require you to squint to see it. The other new feature is the “shake to shuffle”. Now… You must understand that there is a technique involved here… When I was investigating mine I began shaking it like a madman for a half hour with no results. I assumed it was defective (and I now had a sore wrist to boot) when out of frustration I flicked my wrist and heard a beep, and magically a new song was playing. After a little trial and error I discovered that rather than a “shake” it’s actually more like a wrist flicking action kind of like playing with a yo-yo. You also only do this once or twice then stop and wait a second for the beep… If you continue to shake it will do nothing, and is probably not good for the unit either. It takes a little practice to get it down, but once you do you’ll be shake shuffling with ease.

The new Nanos are available in 8 and 16 GB versions (8GB runs around $150 while the 16GB is about $200). If you have a collection of thousands of songs then you will want to go with an iPod Classic, but if you are like me (with my whopping 325 song library) then the Nano is perfect. Mine has my entire library and plenty of room for another 1000 + songs.

Oh… Since I’m discussing a music device I guess it would make sense to talk about the sound… Even though the rest of the Nano’s coolness almost make you forget that it also plays music. The sound is fantastic right out of the box. With my Zen I was always fiddling with the EQ settings to get things sounding decent. And forget about the car… I never could get the EQ to my liking through the car stereo. The Nano on the other hand actually sounded perfect (to me) with the factory settings, and I was particularly pleased when I connected it to my car stereo to find that it sounded fantastic through my car’s speakers without any adjustments. I did fool with the EQ a bit only to discover that I prefer the default setting.

If you are debating whether an iPod is actually worth the cost then let me say… Go get it! The price is definitely worth it. I rarely say this as I always find something to feel regretful of when making a purchase, but this time I feel I got more than my money’s worth. If you are using iTunes and have another brand player then the compatibility alone is just about worth the cost. I was so amazed when I synched the Nano up the first time and realized I don’t have to jump through hoops (or join another service) to get all my music to go.

So happy birthday iPod, and hopefully you will have many more.