I mentioned in my iPod Nano 2nd generation 8GB Black review that I have purchased two of the new Nano units... the other one being this unit. Although in most respects similar, the aesthetics of color, memory size, and price can play a large role in the perception and desirability of particular models in a lineup. With Apple now going the route of limiting color selections to specific memory sizes (unlike when Apple made 4 color choices available to all iPod minis), the 8GB Nano is only in black and the 2GB Nano is only in silver. The 4GB models have the most color selections with blue, pink, and green. Given the Nano's primary function is music, 4GB seems to be the ideal size seems to me the ideal size to carry a good number of tunes, photos, and other information in the Nano (although the 2nd generation iPod Nano leaves 3.6 GB available to the user). Fully loaded with music, the 4GB Nano will grant you around 900 songs (at 4 minutes per song encoded in 128-Kbps in AAC format). That 3600 minutes of music... 60 hours of tunes... that's a lot of variety to listen to in your Nano. Do you really need 8GB?

After a few days of use, I switched my 8GB Black Nano with my brother for the green 4GB Nano I bought him. Although some people may say why... some practical issues made the 4GB model more appealing. This review will not be as detail orientated as my 8GB Nano review but concentrate on why I felt the 4GB Green Nano was more appropriate to me.

Short Take

These days it seems that if Apple or Canon release a new product, I'm buying it soon after it's released. Truth be told, the 2nd generation Nanos do not offer much of anything new functionality-wise over the 1st generation Nanos. The changes in the 2nd gen Nanos are more of the aesthetics and much better battery life. Heck most of the functionality of the 2nd Nanos can be added to the 1st generation Nanos through a simple firmware update through iTunes 7.

The 2nd generation Nanos improvements are quite small but significant. The much sturdier aluminum casing addresses the scratch issues of the 1st Nanos polycarbonate casing without losing any of its elegant design. The screen is slightly brighter (although it's hard to notice unless you put the 1st and 2nd generation side by side). Lastly, the maximum battery life is almost doubled from the 1st gen at 24 hours.

Minor improvements are the gapless music playback that can installed in the 1st gen Nano via a firmware upgrade.

The installed software and operation system on the 2nd generation Nano uses additional memory however. The 2nd gen 4GB Nano has 3.6GB of available memory for you to use versus the 1st gen Nano of 3.7GB.

Overall, the color choices of the 4GB Nano will likely make it the most popular choice. I'll get into why I favored the Green 4GB model over the 8GB Black. Against the competition, the Nano lacks additional features past music, photos, and limited PIM functions. The competition has FM tuners, voice recording, even video functions built-in! However, what features the Nano does offer is well refined and tightly integrated with the iTunes program for organization of your music, purchasing new music, and firmware upgrades for your iPod model. This is the one area that the competition lags far behind. Otherwise, for the memory sizes, the prices are pretty equivalent.

Price

You can read my epinions review The Art of Buying... Getting your money's worth! for some tips to help save money on your new electronics purchases. However, the guaranteed way to buy a new 2nd generation Nano will be through the Apple store near where you live or the Apple webstore. There is no longer an educational discount on iPods from Apple so bargain hunters may want to wait a bit for the webstores to get them in stock.

I paid $199 plus taxes for my unit.

Basic Stuff

Dimensions: 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.26 inches (1st gen 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches)
Weight: 1.41 ounces (1st gen 1.5 ounces)
External design a colors like 2nd generation iPod minis
Dock connector placement and headphone jack like 1st generation Nano... at bottom of unit side by side
Casing colors are almost the same as 2nd generation iPod Minis
Screen: 1.5 inch color LCD with LED backlight (supposedly 40% brighter than 1st gen Nano)
Displays up to 65,000 colors and 176-by-132-pixel resolution, .168-mm dot pitch
Music formats: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF
Equalizer: 22 presets
Skip-free playback
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Photo formats: JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD (Mac only) and PNG formats

Overall, the design is basically a miniturized iPod mini which I feel it a more striking design than the 1st gen Nano. Since the dimensions are almost the same, all 1st gen Nano accessories and cases will work/fit on the 2nd Gen Nano! The main casing is anodized aluminum in one of three bright colors (blue, pink, or green)(Strangely enough, Costco is selling a silver 4GB unit not found in Apple store at this time). The hold switch remains on the top of the unit. The top and bottom of the has iPod white polycarbonate panels. The dock connector port and headphone port are on the bottom panel and retain the 1st gen problems. The screen seems to be only slightly brighter than the 1st gen.

The Click wheel based on Apple's internal design (started in the Nano and Video iPods) and is pretty flush against the surface of the Nano but the difference in texture from the casing to the Click wheel will help you locate and manipulate it easier by touch! This click wheel remains one of the most responsive Apple has design for their iPod models. It will distinguish a light touch from a solid press. The Click Wheel also remains one of the most intuitive designs out there for MP3 players.

The 2nd gen Nanos have a sturdy, tough, and solid aluminum casing that very scratch resistant. Although the black and silver colors look more distinguished and elegant (even more so than the 1st generation), the 4GB models three color choices invoke a more fun and playful character without losing any style points.

The placement of the headphone jack near the iPod connector port remains an unaddressed problem from the 1st gen Nano. The placement works well with some accessories (the earphone lanyard) but horrible for others (the dock unit since you have to remove the headphones to insert it into the dock!). This placement makes it difficult to remove the dock connector since it is so close to the earphone jack (you often have to remove your earphones to remove the dock connector!). It remains an annoyance but not a deal breaker.

Okay... Why the 4GB Green nano?!

Have you noticed the color choices for everyday items lately... especially for an office. Did you notice the sheer amount of office accessories that are black, white, or some shade of silver/gray/gunmetal/etc.? When you have so many devices with similar colors, it gets difficult to find in the clutter. Oh look, here is my 8GB black Nano somewhere in the pile of papers and other clutter on my desk... the black metal filing system, the black halogen lamp, the black wire mesh pencil holder/cup, the nice black mouse, the black casing of the LCD monitor, some of the black medical books and pocket books, black folders and binders... ugh. I place the Green 4GB Nano... it stands out and I locate it easily. The 8GB 2nd generation Nano can seem very non-descript in that kind of clutter.

If you're in the mood for a particular song on your Nano, do you really want to scroll through 1800-1900 songs to find it. The 2nd generation Nano does not have a quick search function although the scroll by letter function helps. Honestly, I didn't fill up my 1st gen 4GB Nano. I saved significant space on it for photos and to use as a flash drive (although this function is made less useful with the tiny large capacity flash drives out there now! $50 can get you a dedicated 2GB flash drive which takes up much less space than the USB-to-dock connector cable). If I wanted to bring my whole music collection with me, I would use my 60GB Video iPod or my 30GB Zen Vision M. The Nano contains the music that I like and listen to the most often.

Yes... the price difference is only a mere $50 for an almost 4GB of memory. However, if you don't use the extra memory, it's the same as throwing the money away. For those of you who say that the space can be used later on for something... urm... like what. Music files are pretty much standardized now... a 4 minute song in 128-Kbps in AAC format is about 4MB. You want to fill your Nano with photos... how long are you willing to view your photos on a 1.5 inch screen? Games... well, the purchasable games on iTunes are only for the Video iPod. Also, how long are you willing to play PAC-MAN on a 1.5 inch screen. I don't think most people will tolerate that for long!

The Nano was meant primarily for a superb music listening experience that is extremely portable and customizable. The rest of the extras and additional features are more icing on the cake that truly useful. These are some of the reasons why I think the 4GB Nanos are the best buys of the Nano line up.

Music Experience and More

The Nano gives you a crisp, clean music listening experience even with the included earbuds. Most speaker systems that connect through the dock connector offer an improved music experience over the included earbuds. To really get the most out of your Nano, purchasing higher quality earbuds is highly recommended.

While there is no way to search for songs by inputable letter or words, the ability to scroll by letter (an automatic feature that activates if you scroll through a large number of songs quickly). However, if you don't keep alot of music on your Nano, the feature does not activate.

Photos remain crisp and colorful even on the 1.5 inch display... but it is still a 1.5 inch display you're using so prolonged viewing isn't comfortable especially for detailed photos.

Battery Life

Apple states up to 24 hours. During the first full charge, my brother got about 18 hours of music playback over the course of 3 days. The second full charge got a little over 21 hours of playback over two days. The third full charge got 22 1/2 hours over two days.

Apple claims up to 5 hours of playback for photos with background music but I haven't tested it.

The 2nd gen Nano has 80% charge in 1 1/2 hours and a full charge in 3 hours. Those of you with the old Firewire cable and charger setup can use them with the Nano.

Connecting to a Computer and Use as an External Hard Drive

The iPod Nano can sync via USB 1.1 connections although it is extremely slow. ITunes took 20-25 minutes to sync my songs and pictures to the Nano (may be slightly slower on the 4GB than the 8GB version... was hard to tell). Like the 8GB Nano on a USB 2.0 connection, sync time was 10-15 minutes for the initial sync (modifying the songs for gapless playback). Subsequent syncs were from 1-5 minutes depending on number of new songs that had to be transferred from iTunes to the Nano.

I honestly haven't bothered with HD Tach on the Nano... it is easier for my to use a 2GB flash drive or SD card reader to transfer files. It's easier to bring a flash drive than stuffing the USB-to-dock connector cable into my pocket. Firewire transfers are still not supported in any Nano.

Games?

The iPod Nano 1st or 2nd generation CANNOT PLAY ANY OF THE GAMES THAT YOU CAN PURCHASE FROM THE iTUNES store. THOSE GAMES ARE ONLY FOR THE VIDEO iPOD WITH VERSION 1.2 FIRMWARE. I've noticed too many idiots who didn't look at the system requirements lamblasting Apple for selling games that don't work with the Nano. Apple lists several times that the games are for the 5th generation iPod player only (i.e. Video iPod). It's not in fine print either... the info is actually near the buy game button. So don't complain if you buy a game from the Apple store and it doesn't work with the Nano... it wasn't supposed to work with the Nano!

Software Inside the Nano

Like most iPods, the Nano has a World Clock capable of showing three different time zones, an Alarm clock which functions exceptionally well, and 4 games. Just like prior iPods, the Nano stores Contact information if saved to a vCard format, store notes (can display text files if you placed the files in the right directory), Calendar, and a nice looking stopwatch feature. They just have to be copies/moved to the appropriate directories on your iPod. You also have a Stopwatch and screen lock (also in previous iPod models)

You have the option to set the iPod to any of the following languages:
Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish

Additional language support for display of song, album, and artist information:
Bulgarian, Croatian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Ukrainian

On the downside, you have the following:
1. If you have WMA or OGG files, you have to convert to MP3 or AAC format.
2. There is no FM tuner built into the Nano (optional accessory!).
3. There still are no recording options like in some other MP3 players.

Keep that in mind when making your decision when comparing to other MP3 players.

iTunes 7

iTunes 7 is your complete iPod music organizer/music store/video store/iPod docking software solution. While the overall music store interface remains similar, the way iTunes displays information on your iPod is even more tightly integrated. iTunes 7 displays the breakdown of memory usage, firmware version, how and what to sync to your iPod... making it a more intuitive experience. I'm still experimenting with the new iTunes interface but it definitely is more pleasing.

It remains easy to purchase music from the iTunes store, encode CDs to appropriate music files types, and sync the songs you want (as well as pictures) to the Nano. Version 7 allows purchasing of TV shows, movies, and games although these are for the Video iPod. So far iTunes 7 seems to be stable. Ouch... I didn't realize the sheer number of Podcasts available for syncing before... there's alot of them.

iTunes 7 also resigned the level or organization for devices and music lists. Everything is much cleaner and the new jukebox like album cover display is very nice. As you flip through the album cover on the main display, a smaller display lists the songs associated with that cover. It's quite funky.

In my upcoming 2nd generation Video iPod review, I'll get into iTunes 7 more thoroughly.

Note that iPods do not sync with other programs (at least not officially). Unless you are computer/software savvy, iTunes is the only way to sync your iPod to your photo and movie collection. MusicMatch is out the window. RealPlayer unofficially can sync although this changes as Apple releases new firmware for their iPod players. I don't know if RealPlayer is unofficially syncable with iPods anymore.

In the Box

I should note that the packaging for the 2nd gen Nano is even smaller than the 1st gen Nano. The packaging make the Nano look more like a museum piece than something to purchase. You kind of feel bad taking the Nano out of the package.

Inside, you get a USB dock connector cable, the new iPod white earbuds, 2 sets of foam coverings for the earbuds, and iTunes version 7 software and PDF instruction manuals on a single CD. You have to buy the actual USB AC adapter if you want to charge the iPod Nano away from a computer or a USB 2.0 hub.

Accessories

Since the overall shape and size of the 1st and 2nd generation Nanos are about the same, you have quite a selection of working accessories from day 1!

I think a case on the 2nd generation Nano is cruel... it covers up the Nano's striking looks with an inferior looking case. I would consider a screen protector if anything.

You can read my review on the Logitech mm50 portable speakers for the iPod. I love these things. They are a fair size with very few compromises on quality and sound!

The Logitech mm32 portable speakers for the iPod are a decent alternative.

Ending Thoughts

To me, the 4GB Nanos offer a little bit better and more fun overall experience than the 8GB 2nd gen Nano. The more vibrant color casings exude more personality than the dapper black 8GB Nano. On top of that, the bright green metalic color makes it easier to locate the device in the sea of black electronics and other accessories... black is just too common a color these days. The Nano offers an excellent music listening experience and for $199 with memory to spare. The extra features like photos and the limited PIM functions are more icing on the cake although the competition adding a FM tuner and voice recording capabilities are nice touches that I wished the Nano had. Although the use of the Nano as a flash drive is well done, it is easier to have a separate flash drive than bring the sync cable with you. Heck the flash drive is some cases takes up much less space than the sync cable does! Video viewing seems like a waste in the competition... watching video on a 1.5 inch screen doesn't seem very fun. I'd also like to keep my eyesight as intact as possible for as long as I can. The overall integration of the iPod, iTunes, and PC/Mac remains the ace in the hole that the competition still cannot touch. Apple's willingness to constantly redesign and update the iPod and iTunes has allowed Apple to keep ahead of the competition in sales even though the competition hardware is superior is some respects.

Overall, I think the 4GB Nano offers the best buy for the pure music listening experience for a flash based player that gives you ease of use as well as tight integration with your PC library and the Apple online music store via iTunes. Apple remains king of the hill again.

I hope this review shows that in MP3 players, more memory doesn't always mean a better player and music listening experience. Alot of factors contribute to your overall satisfaction with an MP3 player. In my case, I find myself happier with the colorful green 4GB 2nd gen Nano than the dapper black 8GB 2nd gen Nano. We don't live in a black and white world after all.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 199
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies