FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE 1GB IPOD NANO

I have just received a 1GB iPod nano and will be reviewing it completely in about three weeks.

I have a current generation 30GB iPod as well as have owned in the past a fourth generation 20GB iPod but have never owned a mini or a nano.

I picked one up after work yesterday and decided to give it a try.

The nano's interface is exactly the same as current generation iPod with video but smaller.

I have been playing around with the sound setup and the backlight and compared it to the 30GB iPod as well and they are very comparable.

The 1GB nano can store 240 songs. If you compress the crap out of them. I have exactly 100 songs on it right now granted six of them are audio books that are about three hours each. Even so it would be hard to get 240 songs on the iPod.

The nano is really light. Heck, the only way I remember that the nano is in my pocket is the fact that I always have my earbuds attached to it. I also carry my 30GB iPod in the same pocket and when I grab for it in remember that I have a smaller iPod in there as well.

The only thing I have to gripe about is the price. it costs $179 to get your own 1GB iPod nano. That's alot of money when you consider that you can purchase a 30GB iPod with video for $349. So lets calculate this for price per MB. Assuming that they are counting that each player holds 1000MB per GB this is the result (even though technically its 1024MB=1GB):

1GB iPod nano =$0.179/1MB or $179/1GB
30GB iPod with video =$0.012/1MB or $11.63/1GB

I know there is a fundamental difference between the two iPods in the fact that the nano uses Samsung NAND flash memory cards and the iPod with video uses a hard drive but think about it. That's a lot of money for a GB of memory.

I will post a full review on the nano in three weeks. If you have any questions just email me at technobabble001@gmail.com or comment by clicking on the comments link at the bottom of this post.

UPDATE: I have completed my testing on the 1GB iPod nano and have come up with some conclusions.

The iPod nano is basically a smaller version of its biger brother, the iPod. It can store pictures and music and has a few games as usual.

I was very impressed with the iPod nano even though going from 30GB of storage down to 1GB was pretty hard.

The sound quality seems the be a tad better on the iPod nano than on it big brother. I especially noticed this on the low bass tones. On the iPod nano the heavy bass tones in some rap and even some pop music was very clear. On the iPod with the same settings the bass seemed to create inference and it ended up sounding flat.

The form factor of the iPod nano is so great and since it has no hard drive it is extremely light. My particular iPod nano almost went through the wash becuase I forgot it was in my pocket (thats something that would never happen with my 30GB iPod with video).

I would recommend this particular music player to anyone however with a strong suggestion to go for the 4GB model. I only bought the 1GB model becuase I didn't want to pay the $300 for a 4GB model. I don't make any money off this website after all.

Oh, and Apple dropped the prices on all the iPods by at least $10. The 1GB nano now is only $169.99 from Apple's online store.

If you have any questions or comments email us or leave a comment.