I have been playing around with the new iPod Nano for nearly a week now. Before I get into the deets about the new Nano, I just want to change up how I'm going to write up this review. Instead of the tons of reviews out there that either summarizes with the good and the bad or give a boat load a details (like what's in the box), I'm going to change it up and elaborate on the good and the bad, from the experience that I had, and making that a direct comparison to the last gen Nano. Enjoy.
What so cool about it:
The screen is absolutely gorgeous. Having spent nearly a week with it, I looked back on my 2nd gen Nano and things look really fuzzy. Steve Jobs did not lie (although he fudges facts sometimes). They did packed the most pixels per inch in a screen on any iPod to date (2 inch screen, 320x240 res, 204 pixels per inch).
Cover Flow is amazing. Unless you messed with the iPhone and used Cover Flow before, I cannot say it is laggy in anyway. Its definitely more fun to scroll through your albums than any other method available on the Nano before. You can try it in the Apple Store, but until you throw your own songs on it, you can't truly understand how cool this feature is.
The Split screen preview looks a bit awkward at first, but then you realize, its just giving you more information that you didn't get with the last gen Nano. Think of it as a screensaver on 1/2 the screen, but it displays album covers, podcasts covers, video podcast covers, and it's zoomed in so you really get to appreciate the details on a album covers even more than cover flow.
The shuffle option on the forth center click is a much needed feature. How many times you're playing a song from a playlist and you wanted to turn on (or off) the shuffle feature? In the 2nd Gen Nano, you would have menu out to the main menu and go to setting to turn it off (Somewhere close to 8 clicks of the menu and the center click button). Now, you just need to click on the center wheel 4 times, and you get the option to set shuffle to off, songs, or album.
The Nano retains memory of where you left off for each video or video podcast you're watching, and it even syncs it between your Nano and your computer. I was watching a podcast of Diggnation on the Nano the other day, during my train commute from work. Since it's a short commute, I paused the show about 1/2 way through, so I can watch it when I get back home. I got home, synced it the iPod, and thought it would be better to watch the rest of the podcast on my computer than on the iPod. So I double click on it in iTunes and I was so surprised the show started exactly where I left off on the iPod. That is really cool! I just did the same the other way around confirm that the iPod continues any videos where you left off on iTunes. Sweet!
Video podcasts are so easy to subscribe to and download. There's no point of having the Nano remember where you left off on a video if you have nothing to watch. But iTunes got that cover with tons of contents, ranging from Diggnation and Webb Alert for techies to CNN news for everyone else.
The Clock screensaver is a nice function. I sometimes (though not often) rely on my old Nano to tell time. But sometimes I would have to wait for the Clock to show up in the title bar since its sharing with the words "Now Playing". The clock screensaver is simple, just showing you the time, the player status (play, pause) and the battery life.
There's more info on the playlist and album section. This is a minor cool update, but cool nonetheless. The playlist section lists how many songs are in each playlist. A minor bit of info, but something that you had no way of finding out on the old Nano. In the album section, the new Nano shows both the album cover and the album title, but it also shows you the artist info in a subtitle way. These are just cool minor, but useful updates in the new Nano.
What reeks about it:
The video support blows. Only H.264? That means I have to convert any Divx, Xvid or other formats that I downloaded. What's worse is a lot times after I converted it, iTunes would say the converted video is not compatible with the Nano. What? It might be the converter, but sheesh Apple, at least add the support in iTunes to convert these other formats directly to H.264 and compatible with the iPod.
Watching a non-cropped (widescreen) movie on the Nano is either a test of visual acuity or your patience. The screen is tiny already at 2 inches. Watching a widescreen movie would result in letterbox in the top and bottom of the screen. That's like watching a 1.4 inch screen instead of a 2 inch screen. Damn it, Apple, please add a converter in iTunes that also handles the cropping of widescreen videos.
There is a ton of glitches in the Nano. Even after the 1.0.1 update, there is still a ton of glitches. The most glaring one is the video section. If I download a video podcast, that podcast should be listed in the video section. I don't want the Nano to say there's no videos in the main menu, when in fact there are. The weird thing still is that you do find the video podcasts there, It is just in a playlist called recently added. Recently added? Of course its recently added. If I subscribe to video podcasts, they are added for me automatically. But how come the main menu doesn't list them? BTW, I also some how got it so glitched that I have playlist from the music section replaced the name "Recently Added". I don't even know how that happened. I was just browsing through the menus and noticed the playlist titled got changed. Who knows what other bugs are there? This is definitely not as a polished product as the 2nd Gen Nano, although I did waited a while (few months) before I picked that up.
Final words for the new iPod:
When you buy a iPod, you know exactly what you're getting. So if you want a removable battery, expandable memory storage, FM radio, or other non-essential features, go buy something else. But if you want the sleek design, the simple and cool user friendly interface, you can't get that from any other company. Despite all the problems, if you have a 2 or 4 GB 2nd gen iPod, the $149 3rd gen might be just right for you. As long as you don't need more space, the new features on the 3rd gen Nano is really worth the upgrade. You can even upped it to 8 GB for $199 if you have a 4 GB 2nd Gen and need the room for videos. But for pplz that started on the 8 GB 2nd gen Nano, this is a tough one. The new Nano has a ton of cool features, but you're wasting $250 (cost of old Nano) and throwing in $200 more just for those features. Is it really worth it?
Here's all the new Nano iCandy:
