I am in no way a fan of Apple. The high price tags have turned me away, and the legions of arrogant Apple fanboys blaming every little annoyance on a PC squarely on Microsoft have always irritated the crap out of me. I am an extremely satisfied Windows XP Pro user, and I plan to get Windows Vista after it comes out.
As such, I had purchased a Creative Zen Micro one year ago (read my review on that if you want, it's still a great choice for an mp3 player if your budget is tight). But, my Zen Micro's cheap headphone jack broke. I looked at the latest mp3 players out there, and although I'm still a Creative fan, their MicroPhoto, with its hard drive (in lieu of flash memory) and bigger size just couldn't measure up to the iPod nano. So, I walked out of Micro Center in Overland Park, KS with an iPod Nano in tow.
I got my little iPod home, and so we'll just go from there.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
So, I take the box out of the bag. Or...should I call the box a capsule? I don't really know. Anyway, Apple's very clever box design gave me a good feeling from the second I saw it. In a tiny plastic case with room to spare, Apple has packed a Nano, earbuds, USB cable, and "quick start" guide in there.
Simply put, the Nano holds a huge advantage in eye-catching design over all its competitors, from the box to the finished product. I love black, and apparently you can have a Nano 8gb in any color you want, as long as it's black. Hey, I'm in luck. As I held the iPod in my hand, flipping it over and over, I was simply amazed at how smooth and light it was.
Apple doesn't include iTunes on CD, but rather has you download it from their website. Smart move, since my ultra-thin Toshiba laptop doesn't have a CD drive anyway, and probably well over 90% of people who get an iPod have high-speed internet anyway and can easily download iTunes. Great way to get the box to look even better while not inconveniencing the user -- and cutting down on costs by not shipping a CD.
INSTALLATION
I sat down at my kitchen counter to install iTunes, and it was finished in under 5 minutes. It didn't require a restart, and I immediately started loading my music files into it.
iTunes
I plugged my iPod in, and it worked without incident with my PC. Here is where Apple so clearly outshines everyone else -- it just works. My iPod immediately started syncing with my computer's music library, a process that was seamless and pretty much idiot proof, unless you do something really dumb like yank the cable out when it says "Do Not Disconnect". This was a vast improvement over Creative's MediaSource software, which required you to manually select files to import -- not too terrible, but still not nearly as streamlined and worry-free.
Editing ID3 tags is never any fun, but iTunes makes it about as painless as possible. The best feature, in my opinion, is that you can select multiple files and mass-edit their tags. This is handy because most people really can't spell, and there's apparently many very interesting ways to misspell band names, album titles, and the like. This lets you consolidate "50 cent", "fifty cent", "fitty", "50sent", "OMG lIeK F1FteE c3NT", or whatever into one giant "50 Cent" family in one fell swoop. Much better than renaming each tag individually.
The "next" button lets you keep editing without exiting the editing dialog box. Handy. And, once you learn the "Alt+" shortcuts, renaming those pesky tags is a LOT less daunting.
Creating playlists is easy. Make playlist. Drag files. Boom. It automatically syncs with iPod and makes all the changes for you. Gotta love that.
EARBUDS
I plugged the included Apple earbuds into my iPod, and headed off to class. Yes, this point has been made before, but I will make it again. Apple's earbuds absolutely suck. They fall out of my ears (or feel like they will at any moment), give weak bass response, and aren't very comfortable. I strongly recommend buying a good pair of earbuds or headphones to use with the iPod; it will significantly improve the listening experience. Put aside that money you were going to spend on a gaudy iPod case; Koss has a pair of earbuds for sale for around $15-$20 that feature earplug-like tips that fit into your hear firmly and give excellent bass -- almost as good as my huge, fluffy DJ headphone things. For jogging or working out, I recommend a pair that Sony sells -- they fit over your ear, making them much less likely to fall out mid-jog. Those are around $10 or so and can be found at any big-box retailer, and they give decent sound for cheap. My advice would be to not spend a huge amount on earbuds, just so you know. Way too easy to lose, and way too easy to steal. Get a nice pair of home speakers or headphones to use at home instead.
USABILITY
Switching between songs is easy enough with the click wheel. What I especially like about it is that it varies the speed as you go faster or slower; i.e. slowly go around and it goes song-by-song, speed around and it goes by first letter, letting you navigate a large music collection easily.
Changing volume on-the-fly is quick and responsive, and seeking to a certain point in songs is even easier with a press of the center button and a quick tour around the wheel. The ability to rate songs as you hear and play them is very nice, too. That comes with two presses of the button.
The interface is very responsive and quick, thanks to the fact that the Nano has no hard drive but rather uses flash memory. Flash memory doesn't crash as often, runs faster, and is far more reliable than a hard drive -- yet another reason I think Creative has fallen behind in this segment of the mp3 player market.
Of course, you can view all your songs by genre, album, artist, and so on. These options are easy to get to and very usable. Plus, you can customize your main menu if, say, you use a certain feature often and it's buried in a submenu. Just put that feature on your main menu and you'll be a much happier camper.
SOUND QUALITY
My old Zen Micro had excellent sound quality, and I was reluctant to give it up. I still have to give it a narrow edge here, largely because of its better equalizer settings. iPod's settings work fine for most tracks, but if your music files aren't all of good quality, some can have too much bass (or treble, for that matter) and "max out" the equalizer, giving an annoying scratchy tone to your music. Zen Micro has a "smart volume" setting to completely remedy this; iPod does not. However, you can make up for that partially with iTunes and its ability to select individual EQ settings for individual songs. Pretty nifty.
Although lab tests show that Creative does technically have the better sound quality, it's barely noticeable for the average home user. Don't let that sway your decision; both Zen Micro and iPod Nano sound great and make great choices for any audiophile.
DURABILITY
Considering how easily pencils break, I was a bit concerned about buying an mp3 player advertised as "thinner than a pencil". My concern was irrational. Although I really wouldn't recommend it, this iPod feels like you could toss it on the ground, throw it out a car window, step on it, and it'd still work. It feels very well-made, well put together, and I have no qualms about its craftsmanship.
BATTERY
Much has been made of "iPod's non-replaceable battery". To be entirely honest, I think this is a rather silly argument against Apple. Although having an easy to install backup battery in your car/backpack/purse can be very nice, iPod's amazing battery life more than makes up for this. I can easily go days without a recharge, and it charges very quickly and easily. In fact, I left my iPod on all night by accident once (fell asleep listening to it...whoops), and it still had more than enough juice the next morning.
The general rule I use when determining battery life of a product I'm thinking of buying is to take the advertised duration and cut it in half. That's what you can usually expect on products from mp3 players to laptops to cordless phones. But, that rule was shattered with Apple's iPod. I think 24 hours may be a bit high, but this player comes a lot closer than you'd expect.
Although certainly some people's iPods had their batteries crap out after just 18 months, many others are still running fine after a few years. Think about it -- if you had a second gen iPod that was several years old, wouldn't you probably want to upgrade to one of these Nanos, even if the battery was still fine? Don't let the "iPod's non-replaceable battery" crowd fool you. It'll be fine.
ACCESSORIES
As of yet, most accessories for the first gen Nanos will work fine for second gen. But, finding an Apple dock for my Nano 2nd gen has proven to be a massively difficult task, and I think $40 for some plastic and a dock connector is pretty pricey. Not to mention that it's white, which looks odd next to this black iPod.
As for what's included, it's only what's absoultely needed to make your iPod work, but that's as far as most manufacturers go. I think Apple could have included black earbuds and a black cable in place of their trademark white. Yes, I know it's supposed to be "cool" to walk around with white earbuds in your ears. But, plugging in white earbuds to this beautiful black mp3 player makes little sense to me. And, the cable could stand to be black as well. I suspect Apple wants to cater to the MacBook/iMac crowd so that their white laptop won't look "weird" with a black cable, but they need to understand that the majority of iPods are hooked up to Windows PCs, and I'd rather have my iPod match my cable/earbuds.
OVERALL
When it comes to mp3 players, the undisputed market share leader is Apple. iPod's market proliferation is so massive that it will take a huge effort to cut into it in any significant way.
I am hugely satisfied with this iPod and would recommend it to anyone, thanks to its ease of use, speedy interface, and just plain usability. It's a great choice, and you can't argue with the high capacity.
Although you can get SanDisk players and such for cheaper, the storage capacity of this iPod can hardly be beat in the realm of flash memory based players. Yes, it's a bit pricey, but it's an excellent value. And that's the important part.
Incidentally, the day I wrote this review, Microsoft's Zune mp3 player hit the local Best Buy here in Manhattan, Kansas. I haven't tried it yet, but it'll be interesting to see who wins the battle for Christmas sales this year.
Apple Store
