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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3474 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Apple
• Model: MA978ZO/A
• Released on: 2007-09-11
• Dimensions: 2.76" h x 2.01" w x .28" l, .11 pounds
• Display size: 2

What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision Review
Super-slim design and Apple’s legendary usability – plus a smart new interface – make the nano a world-beater.

Manufacturer's Description

 

It’s the small iPod with one very big idea: Video. Now the world’s most popular music player lets you enjoy TV shows, movies, video podcasts, and more. The larger, brighter display means amazing picture quality. In five eye-catching colours, iPod nano is stunning all around.

 

 

Overview

An anodized aluminum top and polished stainless steel back. Five eye-catching colours. A larger, brighter display with the most pixels per inch of any Apple display, ever. iPod nano stirs up visual effects from the outside in.

And it’ll wow you for hours. Play up to 5 hours of video or up to 24 hours of audio on a single charge (1). All that staying power and a wafer-thin, 6.5-mm profile makes iPod nano one small big attraction.

 

Cover Flow

If a picture says a thousand words, think of what all the album art in your collection might say. With Cover Flow on iPod nano, you can flip through your music to find the album you want to hear. Use the Click Wheel to browse music by album cover, then select an album to flip it over and see the track list.

Music

Use the Click Wheel to adjust volume, navigate songs, browse in Cover Flow, or explore the Music menu by playlist, artist, album, song, genre, composer, and more. Want to mix things up? Click Shuffle Songs. iPod nano makes your music look as good as it sounds, thanks to its bright colour display.

 

Movies

Buy movies from the iTunes Store and you can sync them to your iPod nano to watch anywhere, anytime. Up to 5 hours of video playback means you can watch two movies back to back.1 And for your viewing pleasure, the 320-by-240-pixel display — with a whopping 204 pixels per inch — is 65 percent brighter than before.

 

TV Shows

There’s always something good on iPod nano. Browse thousands of episodes of your favorite TV shows on the iTunes Store, then sync them to your iPod nano. Watch last night’s episodes this morning, or buy a whole TV series and play a pocket-size marathon.

 

Podcasts

The iTunes Store features thousands of free video and audio podcasts, including indie favorites and offerings from such big names as ABC News, Comedy Central, ESPN, PBS, NPR, and many more. Browse and subscribe to podcasts, then sync them to your iPod nano. You can even play video podcasts on TV using an optional Apple component or composite AV cable.

 

Audiobooks

The digital shelves of the iTunes Store are stocked with thousands of audiobooks — including exclusives like the entire Harry Potter series — so you can catch up on your reading wherever iPod nano takes you. iPod nano even recognizes where you left off reading and bookmarks your place.

 

Games

Put hours of fun at your fingertips. iPod nano comes with three games — Vortex, iQuiz, and Klondike — and you can download more from the iTunes Store. All iPod games are designed specifically for the iPod interface. And all of them look great on the 2-inch colour display.

Photos

iPod nano holds up to 7,000 photos you can sync from your Mac or PC via iTunes. Use the Click Wheel to scroll through photo thumbnails. To see a photo full screen, click the center button. You can even view your photo slideshows — complete with music and transitions — on a TV using an optional Apple component or composite AV cable.

 

Extras

Calendars, contacts, and a screen lock appear in the Extras menu, along with a few more handy items. Take the world clock, for example. Spin the Click Wheel to choose different clocks for cities all over the world. For workouts, use the built-in stopwatch to log your best times.

 

 

 

1. Testing conducted by Apple in August 2007 using preproduction hardware and software. Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced

Box Contents

• iPod nano
• Earphones
• USB 2.0 cable
• Dock adapter
• Quick Start guide

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Customer Reviews

Quick Reviews!
There are a few negative reviews here, whether or not they are by people who have used this new Ipod or not does not matter. Those of you who have used one in the past will know the pros and cons, and this is probably Apple's best yet. I'm not a huge fan of thin styled phones, ipod's etc, and this is easily one of the smallest, but it looks good, and as most people think 'smaller is better', then they should be very pleased. The price is also nice and competetive, especially considering the video playback, and memory capacity. It is also simple to use, and easy to set up.

The new video playback feature works well even with a small screen, as the pixel level is high. So, everything you see will be clear as you could want it to be. You may need to convert file types in order to play your videos, but this can be done easily enough online. The battery is strong- up to 5 hours of film or 24 hours of music. The new Cover Flow feature which lets you flick through your album covers so you can choose what you listen to is nice enough, though hardly essential or exciting. There are also other extras such as games, calendar, stop watch, world times, to distract you for a while, as well as a setting to check how much space is left.

The most important thing is sound quality, and it is just as good as ever, improved if anything. You can easily tune out from the outside world of coughs and chat on the bus using this. The click wheel is slightly too sensitive, meaning you scroll past the song you want, and that is about the only fault I can find here. So for a simple, sleek, high quality iPod with plenty of space, this is the one you want

My opinion
I just read Mr Pickles review so thought I ought to give my alternative opinion and also point out that my suspicion is that he has not actually used the new nano's! I admit that in pictures the new nano's proportions look a little odd but when you get your hands on it it starts to make sense, the key is size of the body, at only 6.5mm thin it feels really stunning and looks great.

It is also good to note that the price of the new 4GB nano (WITH VIDEO PLAYBACK!!) is the same price as the previous nano was for 2GB!

The new video playback feature of the nano did worry me a little as the screen is only 2 inches diagonally but it turns out that the screen has exactly the same number of pixels as the iPod video's screen had so still looks really good. The battery is also able to play up to 5 hours of video which is really nice or up to 24 houers of music (which is more than I will ever need!) The final thing to mention is the new Cover Flow feature which lets you flick through your album covers to find music (not really a reason to buy the iPod but looks really cool!)

Fantastic but...
Decided it was finally time to replace my old MP3 player (an ageing Rio something or other, B/W screen, no internal memory all on SD cards) for something more up to date. Looked around and decided that the iPod Nano was perfect for my purposes. It's a brilliant little gadget; easy to use, unobtrusive size, good battery life, iTunes is simplicity itself, can't imagine how you'd get anything better...

but...

...it has a fatal flaw. Apple have decided to limit the volume to a French regulated level which is below what the ipod can achieve; plenty of web forums on this, just look for yourself. This means that on my bike commute to work or anywhere there is even the slightest noise (outside generally!), I can hardly hear it (I can actually hear the sound of my headphones creaking as I'm walking along, over Keith Moons drumming, so no I'm not deaf). Listening to anything other than loud rock music becomes impossible and even that only just audible (forget it if the music is quite detailed). A decent set of noise isolation headphones cost nearly as much as the iPod itself, so not really an option. My wife's has the same problem so not just mine either.

It's great inside the house, perfect, but that's where I use my Hi-Fi so what good is that? I don't live in France so why is my iPod volume dictated by French law? This would truly be a product with a 5 star rating, but it's let down by Apple restricting the product for all of the countries in Europe, because of just one.