I had seen the adverts on TV on how small the nano was but it wasn’t until I held one in my hands that I fully understood how small and how impressive these MP3 players are.
Weighing only 42grams and a mere 90m by 40m and only 6.9m thick (or thin) these little units are not going to fill your suitcase when you go on holiday. Ideal for putting in your pocket, wallet or purse you can take them anywhere, except the pool of course as they are not waterproof. The small size does create concerns for me with my children though. They can easily get lost if not looked after and outside of the home could be easy prey to pickpockets or thieves so beware.
They come in two colours white and black and two memory sizes 2gb and 4gb, theses can hold 500 and 1000 songs respectively. For me this is more than enough songs but for those of you with large CD collections, who want to put their whole collection in one place, you may want to go for one the larger iPods.
The colour screen looks excellent and shows easy navigation throughout, you can download your tunes into files, albums, types of music etc. My only concern with the screen was, I felt it may scratch easily and some of the cases that you can buy for the nano still leave the screen exposed. My concern is when you put your nano into your pocket or bag and catches something metal. I had heard on the news there had been issues with the early nanos , I still feel this could be an issue.
The main control in the centre of the unit was more touch sensitive than I expected, I use my thumb to scroll the menu, but it wasn’t long before it was easy as pie, if fact working really well with the gel case I had bought to protect it.
The sound is excellent, I can’t tell the difference between CDs and MP3s and I often think those who say they can, can’t either. You can download your music from iTunes, a legal way of owning music. They are impressive boxed also where you open the box like a book and see your nano inside. However you do not get any form of charging your nano except for the computer leads that come with it. This means if you wish to take your nano away from your computer for a period of time you will need to buy a separate mains charger. Which of course is larger than the unit itself.
My final conclusion is that this little unit is a fantastic move forward in the music player industry. I was impressed by the larger iPods that my friends had, but it wasn’t until the appearance of the nano that I was suitably impressed to put my hand in pocket to make a purchase. And I haven’t been let down.
