Yesterday, I walked into the Apple Store with every intention of buying an iPod touch. I walked out with a Nano. Let’s talk about why.
Up until yesterday, my iPod was an old, refurbished 4 gig mini. I chose the mini when I went to buy a new iPod after I lost my first — a fourth gen click wheel — to a bad fall and a head crash on the hard drive. The 4 gigs were a big step down from the 20 gigs the 4G had, but that’s manageable through iTunes. I chose the mini because of the 18-hour battery life. That’s something I look for, dating back to my MiniDisc days. Some of the late-model MiniDisc player/recorders could get 40 hours on a single AA battery. Stepping down to 18 is a big step down when battery-life is important.
I had three choices going in: the iPod classic, the Nano, and the touch. I was drawn to the touch almost right away, because the technology inside is delicious, and the built-in WiFi and Safari browser add a lot to the player. It’s light, holds up to 16 gigs of songs, movies, and pictures, and gets pretty good battery life. Apple claims 22 hours for music, and 5 for video. This is a big improvement over my mini. And it’s big screen would be nice for watching videos. The touch is a joy to use, and while I was looking over my options yesterday, I went back to it again and again.
The classic is the most overlooked iPod of the three; the fat Nanos and the touch generated the most excitement on their debut. Comparatively, the classic is bulkier than the touch or the Nano, though not as much as the 4G 40 gigs from a few years back. It has a nice, big, sharp screen. Of the three, it has the longest battery-life. And, most importantly, up to 160 gigs of space. 160 gigabytes of music and video. The draw of that much space was really strong. Remember the feeling of carrying your entire music collection in your pocket? That’s the awe that my 4G iPod put me in, and the classic inspires that same awe. There’s two very strong reasons I did not walk out with a classic: the hard drive, which is a failure point, and that the computer I’m using has only a 60 gigabyte hard drive, and I don’t need a DAP that can hold my music collection 26 times over. That really left one choice.
The Nano got a lot of bad press before it came out. When the images of the fat Nano came out, people balked. It was ugly-looking, like Apple had smashed down a classic. I had chalked it up to rumor, even when Apple ordered the pictures taken down from websites because those pictures were their property. It was small and ugly and I didn’t think the fat Nano could come out of Apple, or at least this incarnation of Apple.
The fat Nano is something that needs to be held and examined in person to be really appreciated. It’s less than 0.3 inches thick, and weighs next to nothing. The screen is crisp, and it feels bigger than it should be, since most of the real estate of the fat Nano is taken up by the screen. The battery will last you a full day if you’re listening to music, or a cross-country flight* if you’re watching movies. The smaller capacity was a draw-back, but that’s something that can be managed through iTunes. But, the price is the most attractive part: $150 for 4 gigs, $200 for 8 gigs.
When it comes down to it, I bought the Nano because matched my needs the best. I don’t need 16 gigs of space, much less 80. I don’t need WiFi. I barely need video, tough I have enjoyed watching Venture Brothers on the can (JUST ONCE!). I like to have the tactile response on when I use my iPod, so I can click through tracks or adjust the volume without having to look what I’m doing. I use my iPod commuting to and from work, times when I usually want to zone out and stare out the window, or listen to a podcast or audiobook. And, I figured, if I need more space down the road, I can always upgrade.
<3 Grant
* Cross-country flight good for continental USA only. Offer not good for Alaska or Hawaii, the freak states.
