Review: Apple's fifth-generation iPod nano (2009)

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 50
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    I like reading Prince's reviews (including this one) but I do expect sound quality to be part of the review of an iPod. Esp. since there have occasionally been noticable improvements between generations of iPods, as teckstud and solipsism point out. Big props to those guys, esp. teckstud for the iLounge review link as I don't get over there much anymore.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonton View Post


    The new Nano does not have built in Nike+. It has a pedometer function that works by using accelerometer data. If you want Nike+ features, you still need to use the same old receiver plugged into the dock connector that you've always used.



    That's one more thing the Touch has that beats the Nano.



    The presence of the accelerometer in the Nano also points to accelerometer-based games, of course.



    I completely misunderstood that the nano doesn't include the Nike+ receiver; that you still have to plug in the Nike+ receiver to the bottom of the nano, unlike the touch which has that built-in.



    I'm glad I read this before heading to the Apple store this afternoon...
  • Reply 42 of 50
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John.B View Post


    I completely misunderstood that the nano doesn't include the Nike+ receiver; that you still have to plug in the Nike+ receiver to the bottom of the nano, unlike the touch which has that built-in.



    I'm glad I read this before heading to the Apple store this afternoon...



    Me, too. Thanks, Tonton.
  • Reply 43 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    The audio recording quality is even better when you record video using the mic integrated into a pair of iPhone-style headphones.



    I've tried this multiple times and my tests definitely show that the mic in the body of the iPod is used regardless of whether you have the iPhone headphones-with-mic plugged in. It doesn't seem to be able to use the headphone mic at all. Unless there is a trick to have it recognize the headphone mic?
  • Reply 44 of 50
    My workplace has banned devices with cameras. So I won't be getting a new Nano anytime soon. I have the current one anyway no reason to upgrade. A lot GYMs and other locations have bans on cell phones with cameras. So I assuming this Nano would qualify.



    It would be nice If Apple took this into account and released a version of the Nano without a camera.
  • Reply 45 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    According to the iFixit teardown the CPU model number is slightly higher than in the 3GS. There is also a history of Apple using a higher clock speed on the Touch than in the iPhone, not to mention that it is not constantly running phone related processes, so I wouldn?t be surprised if that Touch outperforms the iPhone in various tests. Less likely, but perhaps a more powerful GPU since they are advertising it as a gaming device.



    I see. Thanks for the info. I'm guessing this. Hope it comes out pretty true.



    The camera-enabled iPod Touch will be released next September. Why? By then, 3.2 megapixels autofocus with video would make its way into the iPod Touch. Remember the news article a few months back that Apple had ordered 3.2 and 5 megapixel camera sensors? I can almost sort this puzzle out. Follow me below..



    Next year's iPod Touch's features

    - 32GB, 64GB, 128GB.

    - 3.2 megapixel camera with video capability.

    - All will be using the faster processors that the current iPod Touch 3G (32GB and 64GB) are using.

    - Multi-tasking. ( Enabled via software update 4.0 )

    - Pedometer.



    That's all for the next iPod Touch (4G).



    Here's for next year's iPhone.



    Next year's iPhone's features

    - 32GB, 64GB.

    - 5 megapixel camera with special effects feature.

    - Another faster processor. ( Apple's custom chip will be ready by next year. )

    - Multi-tasking. ( Enabled via software update 4.0 )

    - Slight casing redesign.

    - Pedometer.



    That's all for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Thoughts?
  • Reply 46 of 50
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rapa Whelk View Post


    My workplace has banned devices with cameras. So I won't be getting a new Nano anytime soon. I have the current one anyway no reason to upgrade. A lot GYMs and other locations have bans on cell phones with cameras. So I assuming this Nano would qualify.



    The intelligent thing would be to ban anyone *using* the camera vs. trying to ban all of the devices that *have* cameras. Good luck even finding a cell phone that doesn't have some sort of camera these days...



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rapa Whelk View Post


    It would be nice If Apple took this into account and released a version of the Nano without a camera.



    Right now that would be the touch or the shuffle, depending on your price point.
  • Reply 47 of 50
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Yo Bruce! While it is the speakers that create the sound, the other parts of the device can affect the quality of the audio before it gets to the speakers.



    Basically you have the data (represented as 1s and 0s, followed by the Digital-to-Audio Convertor (DAC), followed by a low-pass filter, followed by an amplifier, followed by the speaker.



    [CENTER]Data » DAC » Filter » Amp » Speaker[/CENTER]



    Then you?ve got harmonic tones, inharmonic complex tones, sine waves, noise, sampling rates (44,100s/s), amplitudes, frequencies and signal-to-quantization noise-ratio (SQNR).



    I?d be lying if I said I understood what all these means and if I had the slightest idea how to do the math, but it?s all pretty complex stuff where even cheap speakers can pick up distortions if cheap components are used in the device. iLounge has stated that even the newly remastered Beatles sound great with $1,300 headphones on the new Nano and other iPods so that should appease any audiophiles out there.



    COOL beans o long lost buddy . I guess your correct i was just try to plug my 595's.



    peace



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  • Reply 48 of 50
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


    Uh, ... What are you talking about?



    It's not a Bose speaker system or a Bang & Olefsen stereo. Aside from cheap Asian knock-offs and the type of players you get in cereal boxes, pretty much any PMP you care to mention that's been released in the last ten years reproduces sound at a quality level above that of the human ears ability to tell the difference.



    Anyone who cites Bose as their standard for good speakers has more $$ than sense.



    Bose is a marketing machine selling overpriced, underspecced audio equipment, pure and simple. Bose spends far more money on infommercials and late night ads than on actual engineering, and for their high end goods both they and B&O - whose products are more about furniture and design for the wealthy than about sound - operate "lifestyle" stores to prey on those who want "good stereos," but wouldn't know rotgut wine from a great vintage as long as both were served from a fancy bottle and were priced to match.



    In the industry the saying is, "No highs, no lows, big price tag - it must be Bose."



    As for sound quality, the human ear and our standards for recorded music, actually the sound quality in music we're living with and accepting as high-fidelity has been in a downward spiral for five decades in a series of trade-offs favoring convenience, compactness, ubiquity and reliability over pure sound quality. (Ironically, this followed five decades in which the drive had consistently been to improve fidelity from the Thomas Edison days, and the tipping point was made inevitable by the invention of the transistor and its morphing into the integrated circuit, clustering first a few and now jillions of transistors into ever-smaller spaces.



    Bottom line, playing a virgin LP from the early '60's with a $200 cartridge on a good turntable over a McIntosh (correct spelling, and funny in retrospect) analog tube amplifier through massive floor speakers properly placed in the right-sized room still arguably beats the best digital sound available 50 years later in some respects. Note: the fact that lovingly-crafted limited edition LP's are still released and sold, as are low-volume real hi-fi systems is evidence of that.



    Integrated circuit (IC) amps made (and some would say still make) many compromises over analog tubes. Then CD's, the first mass digital sound media, even though they initially went through several A/D and D/A conversions and re-conversions between the performance and the listen in early partly digital/partly analog sound ecosystems, arbitrarily cut the frequency spectrum off at 20K period, at a sampling rate which hasn't changed, and while the ear can't "hear" the overtones and harmonics above that range, for instruments like violins there's still a real difference in presence and nuance when hearing one live - where that information is still perceived at some level - vs. hearing it recorded and played back through speakers.



    These things matter less in rock and rap where the source sound is coming from instruments playing though amps with the same limitations from the git-go (though you still perceive more live as sound propagates through a club or concert hall and bounces around), and pop music is where our culture is at. This is probably one reason, outside of the difficulty of migrating a huge installed base and the beginning of the download age, that SACD and DVD-audio never took off - despite being superior for the most discerning listeners.



    mp3's and AAC's and WMA's took the quality down another huge step from CD's. Whether you can hear it or not in any way that matters, it's clear as day in looking at the wave forms of these "JPEG's for sound."



    What has advanced is the quality of electronic amps, microphones, recording and mixing technology, D/A conversion software and getting more sound out of smaller speakers - which together can cleverly mask those limitations - and the multi-channel ambience of 5.1 and 7.1 stereo systems.



    I'm no sound snob and am, yes, perfectly happy with the convenience of having 10,000 songs all pre-organized into clever playlists, and still enjoy some of the first cuts I ever ripped at a whopping 96kb on old RealPlayer software - listening on my middling home stereo from iTunes on my computer, and on my iPods on earbuds and factory car stereo cranked to the max with the bass and treble whomped up to create an illusion of real highs and lows. And my ears are older now, so living with AAC cuts ripped between the 192 to 320 settings (depending on how important the music is to me) works just fine.



    But those are the facts about what are to "audiophiles" the defects in today's music delivery systems based on "audio files" from sources which "unnecessarily" discard parts of the sound at every stage of the process from capture to listening - in comparison to what we could have had if, say, SACD had come out and caught on a decade earlier, and, e.g., if mp3 and AAC didn't have such a huge base and could be replaced by more advanced compession codecs without a complete changeover in hardware and player software.
  • Reply 49 of 50
    The media's general take:



    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...0,361978.story



    They're falling all over themselves in praise of it.



    And really, it does seem to be a great little device.
  • Reply 50 of 50
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post


    The media's general take:



    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...0,361978.story



    They're falling all over themselves in praise of it.



    And really, it does seem to be a great little device.



    agreed !





    Apple has full control of my brain.



    new NANO shows up.

    SAME WEEK I LOSE MY OLD 2ND GEN NANO



    how many colrs are there ??









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