Ipod Nano 4GB

The Ipod Nano is the latest version of this popular portable music player released by Apple Mac. It plays mp3s and a number of video formats. However given the hard-drive space you would have to replace the one movie you can store if you want to watch a different one. It also does not play wma music files.
The 4GB player holds about 1,000 songs, 25,000 photos and the ability to play movie clips upto 4 hours worth.

The little machine is well built and there is a choice of finishes and memory sizes to choose from. Considering the number of tracks it can store the battery life of this device is decent. I usually recharge around once a week (10-12 hours playback), for those that are new to Ipods it charges via the USB.
The battery like with all ipods will eventually fail, so this has to be taken into account when making a decision to buy an Ipod. The cost of replacing the ipod = price of existing Ipod + trusted engineer or manufacturer replacing parts of the battery or harddrive which could cost anything between 50-150 pounds.

The earphone jack system is acceptable in so far as allowing relatively discreet listening option that fits in the ear with no problem.
The headphones are a little flimsy and cost around 20 something pounds to replace. Overall the sound quality is OK but not fantastic. It has a built-in graphic equaliser with around 20 presets but only makes a negligible difference in the sound quality; only the setting 'acoustic' seems to make a noticeable difference but appears only to amplify the treble ranges.

The hand dial that is used to change song selection, volume adjustment is a clumsy awkward feature here. Moving the dial up often moves the cursor graphic downwards, and nothing is particularly consistent.
I have had a couple of cheap Mp3 players in the past and although this one looks better and is much more user friendly there is not much difference in sound quality despite the price difference.

The ipod nano 4gb and lesser sized 1 and 2gb versions also do not have built in radio, which is a part of the latest and pricier mobile phones on the market. The LCD screen is a small 2". This raises the question the screen is small, I personally would not consider watching a film on a 2" screen it would not be very entertaining watching a favourite film or show on a flash based player that leaves me bewildered.
From a song perspective the way to listen to songs on the ipod, is from purchasing tracks on the web based Itunes music store. There is no safe way of downloading tracks from Kazaa and transferring them to the ipod, based on due diligence.

The transfer of songs can only be done using the software Itunes. Again this is not a particularly good selling point. This can be compared to most computers using the Microsoft operating system and the secondary program not being compatible.
The colour silver can get scratched though compared to the black and colourised versions the fingerprint marks cant be left here, though of course the ipod can break if severely mistreated.

The associated components of the ipod products such as speakers, battery chargers, cases are also technology that other companies can not copy. This leaves the consumer not able to shop around for cheaper complementary products. Your stuck buying all peripheral items from Apple associated companies.
Price. As far as this aspect of the buying process goes. Apple's website advertise the 4gb nano £99 including VAT, £86.24 excluding VAT. Amazon have offerings with prices excluding delivery and VAT of £89.71.

Conclusion: The ipod nano 4gb is a good music piece of kit to own and use as and when necessary. I hope this gives the viewer the good benefits of owning and using an ipod as well as some or most of the drawbacks