Jenneth Orantia02 October 2008, 1:00 PM
Your current iPod nano? Out of date already. The latest 4G nano introduces new features like an accelerometer, shake to shuffle, and genius playlists.
The diminutive nano has undergone more design changes than any other iPod, and the latest fourth-generation version continues the trend by ditching the short and wide shape of its precedessor for a more conventional long and narrow design that looks like a cross between the original iPod mini and the first generation iPod nano.
But it’s not just an aesthetic change that separates this nano from the others. Apple has thrown in an accelerometer that kicks the nano into landscape mode when you hold it sideways and browse through your music and photo libraries. It also allows for tilt movements when playing certain games, and you can now turn shuffle mode on by giving the nano a little shake. Plus, storage capacities have jumped to 8GB and 16GB.
We’re not sure we prefer the nano’s new shape over its predecessor’s squat (but cute) design, but the colours on offer are much improved. The bland pastel hues of the 3G nano have been replaced with an in-your-face rainbow of nine vivid colours. We didn’t think the iPod nano could get any thinner than the 3G, but clearly we underestimated the clever monkeys at Apple HQ. The nano measures a wee 6.2mm thick, and has a domed front and back with corners that are so pointy, they’re almost sharp.
Something as tall and wafer-thin as the iPod nano would probably snap like a dry twig if it didn’t have a sturdy aluminium enclosure keeping it safe. We tried our hardest to snap the little player in half, but there was no give whatsoever. The use of aluminium also has the benefit of being harder to scratch and is blessedly fingerprint-free.
The new portrait-oriented display means that Apple has had to rejig the iPod’s interface. It still uses the same split-screen visuals introduced in the last batch of non-touchscreen iPods, but content thumbnails are now displayed in a ticker-style row below the main menu. The 'Now Playing' screen has also been updated so that cover art takes up most of the screen – a welcome improvement.
The physical dimensions of the display haven’t changed from the 3G nano – it still measures two inches diagonally and has a QVGA 240 x 320-pixel resolution. It’s not the same screen though – the whites on the latest nano are warmer, and when playing the same video side-by-side, we noticed colours on the 4G nano are stronger and more vibrant. Brightness levels and contrast are identical. For comparison’s sake, we also compared it to the BlackBerry Bold, and found that the latter had significantly brighter colours and deeper blacks.
To test audio quality, we used our studio-grade Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 pros earphones across a range of different genres, and compared it to our current office favourite, the Samsung P2, as well as the 3G iPod nano. We couldn’t hear any difference between the two nanos, but a world of difference when compared to the Samsung P2. Listening to the driving bass beats of The Presets’ ‘Are You The One?’ revealed a lot of distortion in the lower registers, and the high hat in Bass Kleph’s ‘Bump Uglies’ track lacked sparkle. Fiddling with the EQ presets only made it sound worse.
Still, you don’t buy an iPod to get great sound quality – it’s the many other talents it possesses that makes it such a compelling media player, like the stunning hardware design and the fact that it's ridiculously easy to use. Another new feature on the 4G nano are Genius Playlists, which are automatic playlists based around a particular song that you select. It’s a great idea, but it relies on you have a large library of music that’s all properly tagged so it’s recognised by iTunes’ database. Our fledgling half-a-gig of tunes on the nano repeatedly produced a ‘Genius is Unavailable for the Selected Song’ error.
Battery life on the 4G nano is decent – against the advertised figures of four hours for video and 24 hours for audio, our tests yielded five hours and 10 minutes of video and 31 hours for audio with the screen turned off.
The jump in capacity to 16GB on the flagship model is a welcome change, as are the new colour options. The accelerometer features and Genius Playlists aren’t really compelling enough to make it a must-have upgrade for current 3G owners, but if you’re new to the iPod nano game and don’t expect CD-quality sound, it definitely beats the pants off any other similarly-sized MP3 players.