When you first hold the iPod nano in your hand, it’s a bit of a shock that you’re actually holding an iPod. The 1.5-ounce nano barely feels like anything at all, and seems more like a remote control than something with which you can use a remote. Apple worked for months to cram everything into the iPod nano, and their work has paid off brilliantly. At just fractions of an ounce heavier than the ultra-tiny mobiBLU DAH-1500i, the iPod nano offers the best digital audio players have to offer in a very svelte package. To merely describe it as sleek is a crime of articulation.

The new iPod comes in either white or black, the white version having a gray Click Wheel, the black having an all black face, including the Click Wheel itself.

The controls are right where you would expect them, the Click Wheel on the unit’s face and the hold switch up top. However, the headphone jack, which has been on the top of previous iPods, has been moved to the bottom of the iPod nano, just to the right of the Dock Connector. This change was made, among other reasons, to accommodate the lanyard headphones Apple designed to allow the iPod nano to be worn around the neck. Since the headphones connect at the bottom of the nano, the unit can be lifted for a view of the screen without having to flip it right side up. This move to the bottom has made the small ovoid data connector which has been just beside the headphone jack obsolete, as accessories that need to input data can now be connected directly to the Dock Connector. This change does, however, render some current accessories, like voice recorders and remote controls, useless.

Just in case our slack-jawed praise has you wondering whether or not we’re on Apple’s payroll, we do have one design complaint. We would have liked to see Apple transfer the iPod mini’s all-aluminum shell to the iPod nano. One of our long-lived gripes about the iPod has been its shiny face and silver backplate. There’s universal agreement that they come together to form an amazing look, but both quickly smudge with fingerprints, and the metal backplate scratches faster than a cornered cat. The iPod mini avoided both of these problems because its anodized aluminum exterior was both fingerprint and scratch resistant.

We have nothing but praise for the look of the iPod nano, but given the scratch-prone nature of its exterior, we highly recommend you spring for some type of protective case.

The Screen

The ability to view album art in addition to other track information when listening to a song is a nice feature, though the image is quite small. There is a viewing mode that shows only the album cover of the current song, if you prefer that. If you want to display your own photos on the nano, the software gives the choice of a slideshow or manually displaying images of your choice. Images appear very sharp on the screen, but of course its size is limiting.

It’s difficult to find anything bad to say about the iPod nano’s color display. It’s a welcomed feature.

Software: Old & New

The software of the iPod nano is basically the same that powered previous iPods. There’s the standard playback software as well as Clock, Games, Contacts, Calendar and Notes. In addition to these standard functions, the iPod nano has been taught a few new tricks.

One update is the iPod nano’s software Stopwatch. This was an obvious and long overdue addition to the iPod as the iPod is a frequent running companion. The Stopwatch is found under the “Extras” menu and is a basic stopwatch with lap and pause functions. The software even stores old stopwatch sessions with date, time and lap information.

The Clock application has been updated to support multiple clocks, each able to be set to different time zones based on preloaded cities around the world. Rather than the previous digital readouts, the iPod nano has animated analog clocks, white for daylight and black for night.

Aside from actual applications, there are a few new attention-to-detail touches. For example, the iPod nano comes on when you plug headphones into the audio jack, just like the iPod mini. The nano does one better, also pausing whatever is playing when you unplug the headphones.

Thanks to the new iTunes v5, the iPod nano can also sync contacts and calendar entries. If you have a Windows machine with Outlook Express, the iPod nano can be synced with your Outlook Express address book. If your Windows PC has the full version of Outlook, you can sync both contacts and calendar entries. Mac OS users can, of course, sync contacts and calendar entries with iSync.

As potentially confidential information like contacts and appointments are now easily synced to the iPod nano, a new combination lock program has been added that locks the unit with a four digit code.

Subjective Analyses

One issue we have with Apple concerns the nano’s battery life. Apple claims that the iPod nano will run for 14 hours on a single charge, given specific settings. Our tests revealed considerably different results. With average use – menu browsing, selecting different playlists, variable volume, etc. – we got about ten hours out of a solid charge. This isn’t terrible, but it does fall short of Apple’s reporting. Our tests were conducted with the backlight set to 10 seconds, which obviously is a large drain on the battery. Shutting off the backlight entirely will prolong the battery life, but it seems unlikely that a few flashes of backlight could reduce battery life by 30%.

One highly-subjective analysis to make about any MP3 player is its sound quality. Audiophiles claim to hear the slightest anomalies, while average users hear little difference even when EQ settings are changed. Since we’re more like the latter than the former, our reporting should be taken as such.

In our tests, we found the iPod nano’s sound quality to be equal to that of the iPod 4th Gen and the iPod mini with no real deviation in any direction. All genres of music sound very good, with a few bass issues at high volume. These problems seem to have more to do with the headphones than sound output as the Shure E2c Sound Isolating Earphones handled the bass much better.

The iPod nano sounds great, bottom line. Audiophiles: bring on the hate e-mail.

Conclusion

Apple has outdone itself with the iPod nano. Tiny, light and sexy as hell, the iPod nano marries the best features of all previous iPods. If the nano were available with an mini-style aluminum shell, we’d call it perfection.

If you need 40 or 60 gigabytes of storage, the iPod nano isn’t for you, but if you can live with a mere 50 hours of unrepeated music in your pocket or around your neck, buy an iPod nano today. Hey! Don’t argue; just get one.  And pick up a protective case, too.