The headline change is the increase in storage capacity versus a drop in price, sitting at the top of the Nano range is now a 8gb player which claims to hold up to 2000 tracks. More subtle are the styling changes with a smoother look and a range of new funky colours and a brighter screen. The 8gb model we had to play with gives a useable (formatted) disk space of 7.4gb from the flash memory and without any change in external form factor (in fact a slight shrinkage).

The Nano's dimensions are very similar to the outgoing model at 90 x 40 x 6.5mm with only a tiny reduction in thickness, the main changes are the more curved rounded edges and the introduction of colours for the 4gb model including green, blue and a shocking pink.

Power up the new Nano and Apples claims of a 40% bright screen seem quite realistic, compared to our old Nano the screen is certainly brighter and colours more vivid and less tinted, our old Nano made everything look a bit blue but the new one seems more balanced. The 176 x 132 pixel resolution is nothing to write home about and does seem to undermine any hope of the Nano supporting video playback which once again is left off the list in this 2G model.

A more powerful backlight should cause problems for the Nano battery and we all know how much "fun" Apple have had with batteries and the iPod. So a claimed 24 hour battery life is something we had to test, as with most devices battery life is normally over stated or only achievable with very select conditions. We assume this is the case with the new Nano as we could only get 21.5 hours constant replay from a full charge when playing MP3 files with a volume level of around 60%. Still we shan't moan as this is quite respectable and more than enough for your average iPod user. Charging is via the standard iPod connector in the base of the unit which then in turn plugs to your PC or Mac also allowing the transfer of media.

Audio quality is not something that iPod users have ever had a beef about, apart from the poor earbuds that Apple continues to ship with the range the actual audio codecs and hardware consistently produce a good quality of reproduction. This new model is almost identical in sonic performance, perhaps when using our Shure E2C's we can tell that the audio is a little cleaner with sharper edges on pronounced bass lines but switch to the standard fare earbuds and all will sound just the same as the old model. This says more for the poor earbuds than Apple continuing work on making the Nano sound better. One feature that we first saw on the 5G iPod was gapless playback and it makes an appearance here too for those who are using iTunes 7, download the latest Apple iTunes software and your music collection is scanned and gapless playback tracks identified and added to with descriptive data. This enables the Nano to attempt gapless playback, which is almost achieves depending on how picky you are.

The main change the the GUI is a new search feature, this is accessible from the music menu and then use the click wheel to select each letter of the keyword you wish to search on. Sure this is a bit fiddly but without a keypad it's about as easy as we have any right to expect. The results are then displayed as a a list with albums showing with a CD next to them, artists with a silhouette and tracks without an icon, this is an attempt to show the difference between finding the keyword in the album, artists name or track, the first two tend to be at the top of the list.

Apple have enabled audio recording on this 2G model and if you are prepared to shell out for one of the many microphone accessories you can use your iPod as a Dictaphone which records WAV files which in turn can be kept on the device or retrieved to the PC or Mac. This is a big step forward for Apple but for most of us it's merely plugging an obvious functionality gap that exists. Alongside this the Nano will also work with the iPod FM radio accessory, however this is far from ideal and yet again another "option" to purchase when the competition have had this within the unit for some years.

There are a few little extras like photo viewing and a slideshow capability which in true Apple style are easy to access and use, however they are nothing to get excited about as the cheapest far east unbranded player has these gimmicks in abundance. The main use for photo viewing is album art which makes navigation of the Nano storage easier and shows off the new screen to its best ability.

Overall this update to the Nano is worthwhile and you should be buying a new Nano rather than the older model, the gapless playback, increased battery life and more competitive storage V's price makes it a more rounded contender. However it does feel as if Apple are playing catch up and we are sure you'll see a firmware update that allows for Video and Games to join the Nano feature list sometime soon. Perhaps we are being a bit harsh the new iPod Nano is a well design and stylish MP3 player but it is not by any means a cutting edge device.

On sale now in the UK the 2gb, 4gb and 8gb models are priced at £99, £129 and £169 respectively.

Published - 18/09/2006

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