If you play a widescreen format video on the Nano, you're going to get a letterbox image the size of a 16:9 postage stamp. So, cramming a 16:9 video inside an already tiny 4:3 screen, you'll either lose the sides if you play at full size, or get black bars, which will reduce the size of the overall picture.
Apple's iPod Nano: available in five flavours
Still, you could argue that at least it does supports video - the previous ones didn't - and it's better to have that than not at all. And it does have a TV Out setting, although only with an optional-extra Apple AV cable.
Apple claims it takes about three hours to fully charge - 1.5-hour fast charge to 80 per cent capacity - which provides audio playback of up 24 hours and video playback of up to five hours - and it didn't fall short of this. But with any product in this day and age the battery life will inevitably diminish over time.
The 4GB version will set you back £99 of your hard-earned, with the 8GB variety costing only £30 more - although the former is only available in the matt silver colour.
File format support is still par for the course, with MP3 (up to 320Kbps and VBR), AAC (up to 320Kbps), WAV, AIFF and Apple Lossless for audio, and H.264 and MPEG 4 for video. And the iPod Nano still has no FM radio, microphone or line-in functionality.
Apple's iPod Nano: skinny but wide... too wide
Verdict
Apple continues to make great products - you can't deny it. But, at the same time one starts to suspect it's lost its way just a little. Once, any product sporting the bitten fruit logo was going to be both super stylish and durable. Yes, the new Nano fits into a pocket in a pair of jeans much easier than the older incarnation, but it's still extremely susceptible to superficial damage.
In addition, the inclusion of video is arguably a feature too far. The screen is really too small to watch. The only (slight) benefit is being to use the Nano as a player and watch the video on a bigger screen. So, we prefer the older Nano, to be truthful. It didn't pretend to be anything other than a very nice, compact MP3 player with an accessible navigation system.
Apple iPod Nano third-generation
COMMENTS
@ElderNorm
Erm - what?
iTunes does not open - so of course I cannot drag and drop from iTunes.
With other media players, I can drag and drop from My Computer via Windows Explorer.
By only allowing music to be copied to the iPod from iTunes and not from any other source - apple has severely limited my options.
No it does not just work - iTunes has to work first.
The iPod Nano does not recognise many formats - or it would not need the user to click on 'convert' or 'consolodate' in iTunes. Come to think of it, the consumer wouldn't actually need iTunes.
@ElderNorm
You are showing your age a bit. The benefits which iTunes brings to the table far outweighs the negatives for me. It does just work. Grag and drop the music from iTunes to iPod.
Download and install the latest version of iTunes, plug the nano in, it just works. It doesn't work for you in this case because you are an ignoramous and haven't read the manual/Quick-start guide. You expect this Apple device to behave exactly like your former no-name/no design pile-of-tat player. I'm sure we don't sympathise with you here.
iTunes recognise plenty of music formats, all which are majorly used today in fact. This doesn't include Flac or Ogg, because the majority of people don't use them/know what they are or those that do should be well able to convert them to MP3. I prefer the old last generation nano personally, it was ace, although now I own a Touch (and lo it was good)
If iPods stop being decent players then nobody will buy them. I don't see that happening any time soon. Zen/Archos/Zune/*fill in* owners can enjoy their hilariously niche, aesthetically-displeasing products while they sit in their anoraks pondering the next linux distribution or the next music management software app they want to try, while the rest of us just happily listen to the music...
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@Elder Norm
As far as I'm concerned, if I pay £130 for an iPod Nano then I should be able to plug it into my computer and it should just work.
I should not have all this faffing around with drivers and trying to scrounge an iTunes setup disk because Apple don't want users to use a disk anymore and want them to use the iTunes 7 and Quicktime 7.
I paid £10 for an mp3 player by Matsunichi last year and it worked perfectly - plug it in, drag and drop.
Not so with the iPod Nano - no way.
As for other companies being the same - yes, but their products work.
Why 4:3?
So, why in blinkin' flip does Apple want to sell a 21st century gadget in a 20th century aspect ratio?! Can it deal with modern TVs and do a full-resolution video out on 16:9 videos, or do you need to use the TV's zoom function to crop the programme to hell?
Go and turn on a TV, any TV, and tell me what you see. 16:9 ratio programming. Sure, anything pre-2000 may be 4:3, but the vast majority of programming in the UK is 16:9 and has been for years, and the majority of the "must-see" programmes coming out of the US have been 16:9 for a few years. Few, if any, films are shot in the old 4:3 "Academy" ratio (aka yukky square-screen), and most TV is filmed in 16:9.
For crying out loud, Apple computers all come with widescreens now, don't they? Why not their iPods? It costs enough, can't they give it a proper screen?!
@michael
Michael and others.
If you like wav music so much, thats fine. There are a lot of mp3 players out there. Why gripe about iPods???
As I understand it iPods recognize wav as long as they are not DRM. Hmmmm Maybe a Zune would work? NOPE. Microsoft zapped you there too :-(
Then you go on to say, "Steve Jobs and his arrogant delusional team should be brought to bear for this. Maybe the bear could eat them." Maybe you are a paid M$ troll??? Microsoft does just the same thing. In fact everyone out there has some restrictions or "don't works" with their system.
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