Apple iPod Nano 16GB Review

Overall Rating

If you can still find them, they are a good deal new or used.Decent sound quality,Good stock i Buds! Loud, when cranked.Slick packaging Support for several loss-less formats.Will survive moderate drops.Bright LCD.

Stock bud/i Pod combination, at high volume, will blow out one of the headphones,Stock bud/i Pod combination may give you a nasty shock,Aluminum is a soft metal- dents easily,Metal is harder than plastic- resists small scratches,Personally, aesthetics,Plastic cap on top will pop up if ever dropped,User is forced to use.... i Tunes 7.

After the 1st gen Nanos, the 2nd gens had a lot to live up to. The form factor, the sound quality, the software- and they were at least comparable. The first thing that struck me, mine being a re-furb, were the dents in the case. there were plenty, to accompany a cornucopia of scratches. if you are going to abuse the poor thing, you will leave scars. don,t. And of course, the big question for you audiophile types, sound quality? Good, actually! The Stock i Buds will never exceed the i Pod's capability, but they are very acceptable. their main lack is of range, in all frequencies. one can identify decent overall quality, but anyone who has ever sampled high quality audio components will be quick to point out its shortcomings; bass is reasonably tight, but has little presence, treble is noted but lacks full range, as is the case with the mid range. they are, however, a step up from 1st gen buds. They do distort quickly with elevated volume levels, but keep it within the safe(ish) range and you wont lose much quality. With Shure e2c's (i will shortly write a review) and a real tek ac97 on board for reference, i can say that the iPod has just one flaw- upper midrange and treble sounds more "rough" than on the computer (EQ off), and as an effect of that subtracts from the soun stage, or "spaciousness" of the sound. Other than this, the sound is very good! Treble is clear and defined, the vocals are life-like, and the bass is clean and tight. ( i am listening to Norther, Children of Bodom, Avenged Sevenfold, Cradle of Filth, Billy Talent and the like at full uncompressed CD quality). the battery life is good, you get about 7-8 hours with a little gaming, and volume at about 60%. everything, really, is quite nice- except for software stability. with my 1st gen, swapping menus, scrolling through music, rolling past settings and viewing pictures was quick and flawless. play music and fly past menus on the 2nd gen, however, and you will occasionally see some hesitation and low frame rates, a sign of inefficient software. also, i have had it hang up on me and free to black before. a reset will fix the problem, but it did cause approximately 13 seconds of worry. the memory is very fast to write, and adding music is simple. just drag and drop from your library. duplicates will be ignored, so drag away. you can add many at a time, the buffer seems to depend on system specs. too many and your system will lock up, though, so do take it easy. oh, and from my refurbish model, i find the headphone jack is beginning to loosen (this will happen eventually, and i suspect this 'Pod has has a lot of use). i have yet to find out replacement costs, and for now it still hangs onto the plug .Overall, after loosing my 1st gen, i can say that i am satisfied with the replacement. solitaire will kill many hours of time, sound quality is good, and the i Buds are much, much better than what you typically find packaged with mp3 players. if you like the nano's form factor, and find one in good condition, go ahead and buy it! you really cant go wrong with this one.