• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

iPod nano Impressions (No Pics)

Status
Not open for further replies.

hobart

Member
I've had the thing now for a full day and just thought I would do a little write-up for those still wavering towards a purchase of this little device. I bought a 2GB, Black nano. So... here we go:

Packaging:
Typical Apple. First thoughts that came to mind, however, was that the box was A LOT smaller than I had expected (especially considering the packaging box it came in). To get an idea... think... Gameboy Game box... just a little bigger than that. I was walking around campus with the box in hand without getting weird looks (as opposed to when you carry large boxes... or say... a big cube box ala iPod 20GB). The box is slick, black, and you'll wanna keep it.

Open up!:
It's been said before... and I really want to impress this: No matter how many pictures you see, videos you've watched, or what people tell you... you will NOT believe how tiny this thing is. Amazing. My mouth fucking dropped when I saw it laying in the box... and then I actually spoke up: "Holy shit" when I finally picked the little thing up. You will be floored.

Structure:
For a small device... the thing is solid. I was impressed with the "stress" test link posted on the site... and although I'd never do that with my nano... I can totally see why this baby stood through that grueling test. Although it may sit very small in your hand and remain very light... it feels so well made that you know simply sitting on it... or dropping it won't break it all at once. I remember when I first looked at it I was worried that I'd snap it in half. No way. Surprisingly sturdy for such a small device. The click wheel, too, is equally impressive. Again, seeing something so small you'd think that Apple would somehow cut corners in some aspect... but... all around... the thing holds up exceptionally well. It really feels as though I became a Giant... rather than my buying a small, cheaper iPod.

Looks:
I had completely forgotten (mostly because I've owned a White iPod) that there is a clear, plastic glassy substance that coats the iPod in general. Because this is a Black iPod, you can see this "glassy substance" more-so than you would have on (I'm assuming) a White nano. Then again... because the nano is not rounded like the iPod... that could be a major reason. Along the same page... finger prints and be seen a WHOLE lot easier on the Black nano. I forgot what a bitch it is to keep ANYTHING black clean... the nano is no different. I find myself wiping my prints off often (and you need to be careful what you wipe with... scratches may be left). You'd prolly be better off with living with the prints... or... getting a case if you are scared of scratching. Personally... it looks too good to cover it up... so... like always... I'll just suck it up.

Screen:
Very clear. Very tiny. The album art is there... but... not entirely completely easy to view. Whatever... screen is very nice for such a small device... I imagine it's much like what people were clammoring for with the Shuffle. Viewed well in sunlight as well, which, is always a nice aspect of any screen. Only difference I can see from the iPod Photo Screens is that it's smaller.

Extras:
Only feature I have a use for is the world clock... but even that I'll prolly rarely use. Nice, bright, and easy to view. If you have a use for it I do think you'll enjoy it. As for the other additions... I really couldn't say.

Inclusions:
Comes with WHITE: USB2.0 cable, headphones, and dock adapter. I foresee Apple selling black headphones in the future. Doesn't look bad with the white headphones, of course, but for those that a sticklers with the way things match (not that white doesn't go with black... but you get my point)... I think black headphones with the Black nano would make a very nice statement.

Sound:
No different from any other iPod I've listened to... and I've heard them all. I'm not anywhere near an audiophile... nor do I pretend to be. Sounds just fine... and can get quite loud.

All I got for now... battery life I cannot tell you much about because I'm still draining it before I charge. Factory charge has been going on for quite awhile... so... I'm getting the feeling that 14 hours is NOT a stretch (I'd figure around a safe 12 if you listen loudly and put the backlight on a smaller time frame). If you have any questions I'll be more than happy to answer. I'd have pics but my host is down and I'm not sure when it'll be back up.

Cheers!
 
I know how much I love my 60GB iPod after only a week. I can only imagine how cool that would be in a nano form factor.

unfortunately I can't seperate with my current 21GB of songs. DAMN YOU FLASH RAM! GO UP IN CAPACITY ALREADY!!
 
i got mine yesterday morning. 4 gig black nano. the thing is sex in a box, i dont know how apple doesnt get arrested for prostitution. only negative is it scratches easily. the chrome back alreay has scratches on it and with no nano tubes or third party workout bands i guess im stuck
 
So I clicked the thread reading the title halfway "iPod nano impression *CLICK* (No Pics) *DAMN!*"

Oh well. Good to know that the thing is sturdy, and shiny and good lookin'. Thanks. I'm getting one as soon as I get enough monay.
 
Here is a great quote from David Pogue of the NY Tmes about the awesome nature of this thing:

The Nano will not come as good news to the growing membership of the curmudgeon club: people who resent the iPod's success (22 million sold so far) and its trendiness. They're fond of declaring that other players offer more features for less money.

In this case, however, they'll have a tough time. Want to know what happens when you pit other players against the Nano, mano a mano? You give up, because no other flash player on the market offers anything close to the Nano's concept or capacity.

Two-gigabyte flash players are rare as hen's teeth in the United States, and rival four-gigabyte models are nonexistent (one gigabyte is generally the maximum). Color screens are uncommon on flash players, too; Samsung and iRiver each make one, but they're a lot bigger, uglier and less capacious.

So are the analysts right that the sun will soon set on the iPod Age? The truth is, the iPod has faced stiff competition from some of the industry's best-known companies since the day it was introduced. Yet even after four years, all of Dell's horses and all Sony's men haven't made a dent in the iPod's dominance. And with the introduction of gorgeous, functional and elegant iPod Nano, that's not about to change.
 
I just got mine in the mail this morning; HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT'S SMALL...

...



FUCK!

I love it! So fucking sexy, black on platinum. I just wish it came with a seperate charger, now I have to go buy one. Apple loves making the bank. Ah well, it's all good; This thing is too fucking sexy.
I was showing it off in my class earlier, and they were like holy shit, and I was like I'm as sexy as this, and they were like no you arent, and i was like :wahh:
 
ipods.jpg


ipods2.jpg
 
shantyman said:
Here is a great quote from David Pgue of the NY Tmes about the awesome nature of this thing:
[...]
Because most other players that supposedly offer "so much more" neglect usability. It's analagous to why people haven't been switching to Linux in droves. People, myself included, are willing to pay for what they save in hassle.
 
is yours scratch prone so far? like, have you been putting it in your pocket and stuff? also, how big are the pictures on the screen?
 
Not trying to troll, I just really don't understand the hype over having 800000000 songs all at once.

Whatever happened to just playing a cd in a discman?
 
ooh ooh ooh!!! me me me me!!! I CAN ANSWER THIS ONE!!!!

seriously, CDs suck. I couldn't even imagine having to choose a disc to load a discman with and then taking it on a bike ride that sometimes runs over an hour. so not only do I have to choose an album, but it can't be short, or I might even half to take two if I go for over an hour. and I do this every day.

with my ipod I have three playlists that I put together myself (and fine tune constantly) each with around 300 songs or so, and then my top rated smart playlist and a couple of other top rated alterations thereof (top rated metal, top rated pop, top rated 80's, etc). so I have probably close to a thousand songs already in playlists that I will just just go to and put on shuffle. and then sometimes when I don't really want to pick a playlist I'll just choose shuffle from the main menu. the nice thing about that is it goes through ALL my CDs, even my less playerd ones. I will actually stop my bike during a ride on a song I like just to give it a 3, 4 or 5 star rating, to kind of flag it for later saying "hey, I like this song, have to remember that one."

all of this stuff is impossible with a discman. and I don't know about other DAPs, but everything I've mentioned takes like 2 seconds to do on the ipod. The greatest UI on a DAP hands down. Especially for huge collections like mine.
 
Timo said:
is yours scratch prone so far? like, have you been putting it in your pocket and stuff? also, how big are the pictures on the screen?

I put mine in my back pocket and have no issues with scratches. I also never out a screen protector on my on my PSP and thisnk it looks fine, so YMMV.
 
Just putting mine in the same pocket with my earbuds scratched the living crap out of it... It seems pretty scratch prone if you ask me. I have the black one btw....
 
borghe said:
ooh ooh ooh!!! me me me me!!! I CAN ANSWER THIS ONE!!!!

seriously, CDs suck. I couldn't even imagine having to choose a disc to load a discman with and then taking it on a bike ride that sometimes runs over an hour. so not only do I have to choose an album, but it can't be short, or I might even half to take two if I go for over an hour. and I do this every day.

with my ipod I have three playlists that I put together myself (and fine tune constantly) each with around 300 songs or so, and then my top rated smart playlist and a couple of other top rated alterations thereof (top rated metal, top rated pop, top rated 80's, etc). so I have probably close to a thousand songs already in playlists that I will just just go to and put on shuffle. and then sometimes when I don't really want to pick a playlist I'll just choose shuffle from the main menu. the nice thing about that is it goes through ALL my CDs, even my less playerd ones. I will actually stop my bike during a ride on a song I like just to give it a 3, 4 or 5 star rating, to kind of flag it for later saying "hey, I like this song, have to remember that one."

all of this stuff is impossible with a discman. and I don't know about other DAPs, but everything I've mentioned takes like 2 seconds to do on the ipod. The greatest UI on a DAP hands down. Especially for huge collections like mine.

Reminds me of the Chatterbox lady on GTA III... but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
 
I must not be very sensitive to scratches. I did get a hite one though because I knew it would show prints and scratches less. To be honest theough the demo black ones I saw at the Apple Store were not printed too badly.
 
I got mine a few days ago. Here are some pix:

ipod-comparison.jpg


Size comparison (Baby Nano is so happy with Mommy DS and Daddy PSP ;o;)

ipod-mirror.jpg


The back... which doubles as a compact mirror for all of you vain people! =PpP LOL

ipod-song.jpg


The new color display!

Right now I've been using the Nano more as a flash drive than an mp3 player. I copied a few gigs worth of client files from my dad's home computer to his office computer, which would have taken days to do with CD-RWs. Using the Nano as a flash drive, that took only a matter of minutes. If you aren't interested in the iPod as a music player then you may be interested in using it as a flash drive, because at $200 for every 2 gigs you're getting a real bargain IMO.
 
What do you mean by radio? I know that it has Podcasting, but I haven't tried it yet.
 
BTW I dunno about the front, but the back of this thing is extremely scratch-prone. There is a scratch about the length of half an inch on the back of my Nano that my dad made when he moved it on his desk. If I had known these things were so scratch-prone, I would have ordered my Nano Tube sooner. I'm kind of avoiding taking it around with me to listen to at school and stuff now because I don't want to give it anymore scratches. :lol If you're thinking of buying one, then pay a few bucks more to get a Nano Tube or some other kind of case.
 
Waychel said:
What do you mean by radio? I know that it has Podcasting, but I haven't tried it yet.


he's just trolling. its well known that ipods dont have FM tuners built in.. and its basically pushed into our faces in every ipod thread.
 
quadriplegicjon said:
he's just trolling. its well known that ipods dont have FM tuners built in.. and its basically pushed into our faces in every ipod thread.

Oh. I honestly didn't think it was a troll, though I already knew the answer to the question :lol
 
Ah kay... this is my first iPod, so I'm not all too familiar with some of this stuff. :lol

I could really care less about whether it has radio or not. This thing is a real bargain and lifesaver as a flash drive alone. I can't stress enough how convenient it is as more than just a music player. I dunno how I got by without one now TBH.
 
Waychel said:
BTW I dunno about the front, but the back of this thing is extremely scratch-prone. There is a scratch about the length of half an inch on the back of my Nano that my dad made when he moved it on his desk. If I had known these things were so scratch-prone, I would have ordered my Nano Tube sooner. I'm kind of avoiding taking it around with me to listen to at school and stuff now because I don't want to give it anymore scratches. :lol If you're thinking of buying one, then pay a few bucks more to get a Nano Tube or some other kind of case.

Don't worry about those scratches on the back (or front either). Unless it's a deep scratch, you can easily remove it by buffering them out with a polish. I'll have to dig up directions, but it's nothing anyone can't do for a few dollars. iPods, and other such devices, definitely come in handy as removable storage for sure; I use my 1GB Shuffle, which basically amounts to a USB key, quite a bit to truck around all sorts of stuff quickly.
 
Apple really needs to get the ipods under 100$. I'd buy one at that price. But I can't justify buying one over that.
 
Timo said:
is yours scratch prone so far? like, have you been putting it in your pocket and stuff? also, how big are the pictures on the screen?

I kept my nano in my change pocket of my jeans for a day and there's scratches and scuffs EVERYWHERE :(
 
Update:

The front of mine is how scratched to hell. one day I just looked at it and it had a ton of scratches on it. Oh well, I can't say I care that much. After a while you get over being so obsessive about having everything look brand new. You save yourself a lot of stress that way. :)
 
who fuckin cares about a fm tuner??? you dont put gigs of music in your pocket to listen to the god damn radio. you buy an mp3 player to listen to what you want when you want. who wants to listen to commercial interrupted censored mainstream music???
 
truffleshuffle83 said:
who fuckin cares about a fm tuner??? you dont put gigs of music in your pocket to listen to the god damn radio. you buy an mp3 player to listen to what you want when you want. who wants to listen to commercial interrupted censored mainstream music???

You do realize that some of us listen to FM NPR, you know, non-commercial "LOL TEH MAN'S MAINSTREAM MUSIC" stuff? Point is, if they can implement an FM tuner, then why not? You act as though you're upset at the prospect of the consumer having choices. Do I use the FM tuner on my MuVo much? Nope, but it's nice that it's there. Even a sparingly-used feature is better than no feature at all. The nano is an awesome player and part of me is still contemplating buying one. I would've preferred that it had an FM tuner, but I can't say it's a deal-breaker.
 
From what I've heard - and my own limited experience since mine came in yesterday - they sound slightly clearer than the shuffle (giving it the best sound quality out of the iPods) but it has a bass drop off with low impedence phones (ie. most earbuds/canals) like the bigger ones do. It doesn't personally bother me, as I'm either using big phones that it doesn't affect or my modded EX71s (which I bought specifically for the bass drop off.)

And yeah, this thing is great. I always laughed at people who are excessively worried about scratches but this thing makes you want to baby it. I've heard applying some clear acrylic spray (like Krylon's Crystal Clear that's guaranteed not to yellow) and applying several thin coats does wonders to prevent scratches.
 
Macam said:
Don't worry about those scratches on the back (or front either). Unless it's a deep scratch, you can easily remove it by buffering them out with a polish. I'll have to dig up directions, but it's nothing anyone can't do for a few dollars. iPods, and other such devices, definitely come in handy as removable storage for sure; I use my 1GB Shuffle, which basically amounts to a USB key, quite a bit to truck around all sorts of stuff quickly.

If it isn't too much trouble, could I bother you for more information about this? I ordered a Nano Tube and I'd like to buffer out the scratches before I put the Nano in it for safe keeping. ^^
 
I think my nano may be defective. For some reason, the battery seems to only last about 6 or so hours. That IS with constant volume changing since I'm too lazy to redo my music collection, but it still seems suspiciously short.
 
shantyman said:
Here is a great quote from David Pogue of the NY Tmes about the awesome nature of this thing:

Two-gigabyte flash players are rare as hen's teeth in the United States, and rival four-gigabyte models are nonexistent (one gigabyte is generally the maximum). Color screens are uncommon on flash players, too; Samsung and iRiver each make one, but they're a lot bigger, uglier and less capacious.

u2_01.jpg


NY Times needs to do a bit more fucking research.

pic_u2_white.jpg


2 GIGs

Sound quality that wipes the floor with NANO and Shuffle.

Feature set that wipes the floor with Nano and Shuffle.

Perfectly easy to use.

Perfect.

Best Flash Player Ever

iPod really needs to work on whatever's wrong with the sound in it's flash players. Listening to a portion of a song on a loop on this thing and then listening to the same thing again on a Nano is un-fucking-real.

Try it, if you have access to a U2 or a U3 when it comes out.
 
The part about 2 gig flash players is. The U2 is far from ugly, and it's also very small.

2 gig iPod Nano has nothing on 2 gig U2 besides a color screen. I suppose if you really want a color screen on your flash player you can wait for the U3 unless you enjoy looking at pictures on your Flash MP3 player.

Viewing pictures on any MP3 player is far more useless than an FM Radio. There's talk radio and NPR on FM. Displaying pictures is a totally useless feature that I've never used on ANY of my MP3 players other than my X5 and that's only because it's my wallpaper.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom