iPod nano 2nd Gen

From my previous post, you can gather that I have an iPod nano 2nd Gen. I bought it last November and just now getting around to writing my review. Before the iPod nano, I was using an RCA Lyra MP3 player which worked good, but I was running out of song capacity and it did not provide playlists.

After much thought, I decided to get the iPod nano. I ordered directly from Apple because I wanted to personalize my nano with a laser etch (see picture). This was pretty neat. I ordered my nano on Thursday and it arrived to me from China on Tuesday. Pretty impressive logistics! I wanted to get an 8G nano just to make sure that I had enough room for my songs, but the 8G unit only came in black at that time, now it also comes in red. I still don't want black or red, so I got a 4G silver nano. The 4G nano will hold about 1,000 songs. I have over 800 songs on my nano right now.

Why did I chose the nano over the regular iPod? Mainly size, weight, and mechanical issues. Although the regular iPod has a much larger capacity (30G vs 4G), the iPod uses a small mechanical disk drive where the nano uses flash memory. The nano has no moving parts to wear out. The nano is also very small and lightweight so I can wear it on a lanyard around my neck. You can also watch video files on the regular iPod which I don't need to do. I just want to listen to my music, making the nano the logical choice. There is also an iPod Shuffle which is similar to the nano in that it is a flash memory based player. The Shuffle is even smaller and lighter than the nano because it does not have the display. The Shuffle also does not have playlists which I wanted.

You get your songs on the nano by performing a sync with iTunes, so I downloaded and installed iTunes, then started ripping my CDs. You can buy songs, audiobooks, and other items from iTunes store and sync them with your nano. I tend not to buy downloadable songs since once they are downloaded, I have to keep up with them. If my hard drive crashes, then so do my songs. So I still buy CDs and rip them into my system. I did buy a couple of audiobooks from iTunes which I loaded up and played. Worked great!

When I rip a CD, I have iTunes set to get the ablum artwork. The artwork gets store in my nano when I sync, so when a song is playing, the album cover is shown in the display. Pretty neat! iTunes also lets me put the lyrics into each song, so with a little web search, then cut & paste, I have the song's lyrics stored on my nono too! While the song is playing, I can select the lyrics display and use the scroll wheel to read the lyrics on the display.

Yes, I like my iPod nano. I have not tried the Microsoft Zune or any of the players from the other vendors, so I can't really give any comparisons. My iPod nano, however, allows me to personalize my music listening and I like that!