Do The Music with iPOD Nano Chromatic
Touted as the most innovative and prodigal company, Apple Inc.! Didn't stand back when media player are concerned either. With the launch of Touch screen based PMP's and Phones, Apple once again demonstrates its potential and turned the table with the release of iphone and itouch. Some hate it and some love it, iphone created a new dimension and started a new 'era of touch based phones. But what about those who cannot spend so much in itouch ? Well to enchant other users apple has redefined its PMP lineup by updating its previous models. Yes, apple did updated its PMP product lineup be it the petite shuffle or the ravishing nano.
So today we will be laying our hands on the newly released Apple Ipod Nano Chromatic. The model tested today comes with 8Gb space. The new model comes with lots of new technologies and will try to please the users aiming for mid range portable media players.
With this new version of ipods, Apple has double the capacity keeping the price intact giving more space at the same price compared to the third generation model. The forth generation have reminiscent form factor to that of initial ipod models. The new model is sleek and has curved ends providing a sturdy grip.
[BREAK=Packaging & Specification]
Packaging & Specification
Apple product stand out in every respect, not only they are considered as a benchmark but they deliver great finishing right out of the box. The ipod comes inside a sleek transparent plastic box. The product box is impeccable and is designed for optimum packaging. The content fit right into it and once done you do not have worry about it. Unlike other clumsy packaging, this one strike right from the first look. No frills its just perfect.
Unpacking the accessories was easy and after unpacking there were handful of useful goodies. The package comes with the ipod, headphones, a usb charger cable, small dock, and manuals. On to the player, the first looks was impressive. The player is sleek and very thin, it comes with a nice glossy screen and a brushed metallic body.
Dimensions : -
- Height: 3.6 inches (90.7 mm)
- Width: 1.5 inches (38.7 mm)
- Depth: 0.24 inch (6.2 mm)
- Weight: 1.3 ounces (36.8 grams)
On the capacity front the newer ipod comes with double capacity and are available in 8 and 16gb variants. The company claims to have 24hrs of battery life for music and 4hours for video. The newer ipods has 1hour less battery backup when compared to 5hrs of third generation ipods. The newer ipods are environment friendly and have reduced usage of pollutants.
- Arsenic-free glass
- Brominated flame retardant-free
- Mercury-free
- PVC-free
- Highly recyclable aluminum enclosure
The Operating system support, Apple ipods only have support for Windows and Mac OS and itunes is recommended for optimal synchronization. There is no official support for linux, which indeed is bad. In spite of no official support you can easily sync music/videos and photos using many ipod managers and media players. Though don't expect any software even in windows to have all configuration option like itunes.
A Closer Look
I had a lot of expectations with the new ipod and to my surprise the experience was mixed bag. After disassembling the package I was thrilled by the sheer looks of the newer ipod. The newer ipod carries the looks of previous ipods excluding the third generation and Apple has taken the design to a newer height providing perfect blend of style and ergonomics. The manual provide is very complete and covers every bit of information in just single page.
The new ipod is very sleek and fits right into the fist. Though the chances of dropping is a quite high if you have big hands. The newer ipods have a cylindrical looks and has been built using a single sheet of aluminum. Yep, there are no joints and thus gives a more streamlined look. However there is no radical changes in design, the overall layout remains the same -with the screen on top followed by click wheel and connectivity options in the middle & lower part respectively.
The upper portion of the ipod features a small button that lets you lock the ipod when not in use or when idling. This comes handy when you don't want to any disturbance while listening to the music. This locks the ipod completely and will hinder usage of any feature/button and will save power.
The screen in the 4th gen ipods comes in portrait mode instead of landscape mode as used in 3rd gen. Thanks to this, the newer ipods don't have wider body. The screen is glossy and fingerprint magnet, it catches dust easily so a screen protector is must. The newer ipod comes with a 2' LCD screen with a 320x240 of native resolution. The PMP has inbuilt motion sensor which will adjust the screen mode from portrait to landscape when tilted. Unfortunately this option only comes into play while playing games and navigating collection using Cover Flow.
The screen is very bright and colour reproduction is very precise. The reproduction is well laid out and the 2' screen provide decent viewing, watching movies is very easy on the eyes though a bigger screen would be a handy addition. The ipod screen offers decent viewing angle as well.
The middle section comprise of the ubiquitous navigation options i.e. the intuitive click wheel in ipods .The click wheel as usual is very responsive, navigating massive collections is suave, the only led down is that the wheel is quite sensitive thus results in wrong navigation which becomes vexatious at times, of course this won't happen after you became comfortable with it.
The connectivity front on the ipod is very niche . The ipod thankfully comes with a 3.5mm jack for headphones/earphones connectivity. The charging and data shares the common cord. There is only one USB cable that serves multiple purpose for both charging and data transfer. The ipod comes with the latest USB standards offering high data transfer capabilities. The package comes with a small charging dock through which you can put the ipod in vertical position while charging.
[BREAK=Performance, Features & Addons]
Performance, Features & Addons
On the performance front the ipod does offer good results when coupled with a good quality earphones. The bundled earphones are just not worth using and any PMP user should replace them with something much better. The bundled earphones not only lacks in audio quality but doesn't even fit in ear making it impossible for user to hear music while running. To test the ipod potential I opted for Creative EP630 and Soundmagic Pl30. I was mesmerized with the astounding output the ipod provides when coupled with these headphones. The battery life will substantially decrease if you use any third party earphones.
The music playback was very good and surely stands up to the standards of the ipod, but somewhere it lacks when compared with Cowon S9, the playback could have been better. Nonetheless it still have that grove a good player should come with. Support for media format is very limited as well, with a support only for ACC, Mp3, Audible, Apple Lossless, Aiff and WAV in audio segment while it only supports mkv,mp4 and mov in the video spectrum. The player offers a 22 band equalizers and comes in with spoken menus. The spoken menus is a worthy addition though I find it irritating at times while navigating collection. The spoken menu will minimize the audio playback and will keep pronouncing the titles everytime you change the menu or shuffle the collection.
The ipod is quite feature rich, it will please you with the basic applications along with some extra features it comes with. The ipod comes with a Alarm, you can easily set the alarm with custom/preset profiles. Unfortunately there is no pre-installed tunes for alarm but it offers you set the playlist as the alarm tune. Apart from the basic media player feature ipod offers notes, calendars, contacts and stopwatch as addons. The bad! you cannot add notes and contact from the ipod, to add you have to sync it with itunes which makes it useless. What if I am on the run and I need to add a contact ? What is the use of this feature when you cannot add any new entry on the fly ?
By default the ipod features 3 games Klondike, Maze and Vortex. The second game utilize the motion sensor and you have to tilt, bend and rotate the ipod inorder to play it. Very fun to play but becomes very painful at times and with slim body on the top chances of dropping becomes very likely
.You can play the games in both landscape and portrait mode except the klondike which operates in landscape mode only.
There is a new shake feature reminiscent of the Sony Ericsson's shaker phone. Just shake the ipod to change the track. The 4th gen ipod even support cross fading between tracks.
Being the most hyped and popular PMP's in the market, ipod offers decent expandability options. You can grab the extra ipod accessories, games and third party addons from apple store. Apple in collaboration with Nike offers Nike+ which is a set of a chip and a receiver, allows you to track down your speed and distance while running or cycling. You can then sync it online using itunes ofcourse and compare it with other users.
To install a game you have to depend on the itunes and other than that there is no way to installing it. Apples keeps on changing the # and working of the ipod making ever new model incompatible with any software with an exception for itunes, such hideous approach is highly condemnable and forces you to use itunes even if you don't want to, unlike other players in the market apple has the most shrewed approach towards syncing and shows the proprietary approach of the company.
[BREAK=Aftermark]
Aftermark
Well in the end I had a mixed bag experience. I was amazed by the overall design and intuitive interface and decent expandability options. The music playback is decent as well but the bundled earphones is a serious led down. The player doesn't offer a FM player which nowadays can be seen in a low end PMP devices..The video playback and the 2' glossy screen offers better experience and thanks to the bright screen the movie playback is enjoyable. The battery life is quite decent considering the compact size of the ipod. The battery life varies on the usage and the brightness level set. With a fully charged battery I was able to view 3 movies of 1 and 1/2 hours each with still something left to be utilized.
Itnues is probably the most irritating part of the player and is surely very limited approach. For everything you need to sync using itunes. Apple does every possible step to promote its market and will guide you through it the first time you use it with itunes.
Ipod has surely evolved a lot but the limited and proprietary nature is very disappointing. Lots of feature becomes unusable if you relies on any third party ipod manager. On top of it there is no Linux support, however you can still use and sync music/videos/pictures using the media players and ipod managers for linux.
In the end would I recommend an ipod ? No! If you want a PMP player for quality music experience look for other alternatives, there are lots of value options available from the stores of Creative, Cowon and iRiver. The ipod retails for higher price compared to its counterpart and offers high price/gb . The current value of 8gb varient is Rs8700 which is very high for any 8gb mid range music player. So if you are in the market for any good quality PMP look out for other alternatives before jumping to the iwagon.
Ratings : -
- Music Playback – 3.5 / 5
- Video Playback – 4 / 5
- Hardware – 3.5 / 5
- Interface and features – 4 /5
- Expandability Options – 3.5 / 5
- Operating / Software Support – 2.5 / 5
Please digg the review here : Review : Do The Music with iPOD Nano Chromatic
Thats it for now . I hope you have enjoyed the review.
Keep the comments & suggestion flowing.
Regards
Darky
