Archive for November, 2005

I succumbed to the temptation and bought myself an iPod Nano (black, 4Gb) shortly after it was first introduced. And I’ve got to say that the Nano is probably the best music player for me.

It’s small - the form factor is great, it’s easy to carry, and it’s still usable. Sure, there are smaller players out there (such as the cube-shaped player from Wal-Mart, and the iPod Shuffle) and some that look geekier (and have brighter OLED screens) but the Nano seems to be more usable.

It sounds great - I’ve tried it with several pairs of headphones, as well as my JBL OnStage (which sits in the twins’ nursery and usually holds my older “3G” iPod 20Gb as a jukebox). The sound is as good as you can expect for a portable device. I’m no audiophile so I can’t speak for one, but it sounds really good, and I can’t hear any difference between the source CD and the encoded AAC file (320kbps).

This brings me to my next point - I have completely switched over to iTunes for managing my encoded music. Previously, when I used a Linux workstation at home, I had ripped a lot of CDs into 256-kbps MP3 files, but never really ended up using them for much of anything. When I first started using my original “3G” iPod, I manually imported a lot of the MP3s, not really trusting iTunes to do its job properly, and irrationally fearing a non-MP3 file format.

Since then, I’ve learned my lesson. iTunes makes ripping CDs easy - almost too easy. Before, I had to worry about things randomly hanging in mid-stream, or for the few mixed-mode CDs I encoded, remembering to manually cut the last audio track by 2:30 to avoid hitting the gap between the sessions. Little nagging things like that kept the ripping process from what it should be - plug and play. But iTunes takes care of all that.

Back to the iPod Nano for a bit. Apple fixed something that always bothered me about the “3G” iPods - the ability to resume playback after the iPod goes into a “deep” sleep. Those of you who have needed to let an iPod sit idle for 2 or more days will probably appreciate this. Thank you Apple!

I’ve put on one of the “InvisibleShield” protectors (which you can purchase here) and it seems to work pretty well. I have noticed that the click-wheel needs a bit more force when pushing any of the four corners, but it’s a small price to pay for having a scratch-free iPod Nano.