Review: Apple's new iPod nano is a 5G video iPod in a nano-thin shell - Page 2

You're saying that the viewing experience is better on a tiny display than on a large display?

I felt the review went a bit overboard on the whole video-iPods-have-disproven-the-naysayers thing. The iPod market share and available technology has simply made video playback a why-not feature.

Overall, people still aren't that interested in watching video on a minuscule screen. Compared to overall iPod usage, it is a seldom used feature. Well, other than the initial novelty of showing off what the gadget can do. Other than that, people pretty much return to using their iPods for audio.

Not that video support should be neglected. Only that it hasn't, and never will, be a heavily used feature. In my opinion, handheld video playback nay-sayers have been vindicated more than disproved.

Even if the US sales of iTunes music is only 1B tracks, that still outstrips TV show sales by 10:1 It's been a while, but the last survey basically said that the average video use on an iPod was less than 5% of its overall use. I really don't think video sells the iPod for most people, it's a bullet point and not used that much.

If they removed the video and dropped the price by $100, I would be the first in line to buy a 160GB music-only ipod. But at current pricing, I want the ability to carry and view my family's home movies too, as well as a few episodes of Star Trek TNG.

$100 isn't what gets you the video capability, that gets you the huge drive.

That still doesn't change the fact that the video capabilities are a very tiny share of the average video iPod's usage.

Well guys, if you're willing to wait a few years, and we all are, aren't we, then the solution is in sight. All the content you could ever think to ask for will be carried on your iPod, or phone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/te...ss&oref=slogin

I'm curious about sound as well. I've had to "normalize" most of the music on itunes, and they all play at somewhat a consistent volume on my ipod and shuffle. But on my 2G nano the volume is ALL over the place, even with the nano's volume check turned on. it's terrible. I can only imagine it's a bit better on the 3G nanos???

Yah, another $50 I need to spend to replace the $30 cable I bought the first time... sigh

I didnt say it did change that 'fact', and I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you.

$100 gets you the huge hard drive? Maybe so, but what does the other $250 get you? My point was that a portion of product cost is dedicated to offering the video capability. If they strip that out and charge a reasonably reduced price, I'd want it. But the current pricing is such that they need to provide more than just a music player.

Technology is cheap enough to charge just 50% of the current price for what is essentially a 3G ipod with a 160GB hard drive. That would be $175. A SATA 2.5" notebook drive can be had for less than $100 (retail). Put on a monochrome 1.5" screen (without coverflow) and I'm happy. But if you want to charge 349, you've got to have video capability too. If you interpret that as meaning that video capability costs $175, I think you'd be incorrect because theres also an implied margin and a the 'Apple Premium'.

The machine with the first 80GB?


But you are the one that brought this up. Nobody is suggesting to strip out the video part, which I doubt costs more than 20$ anyway. I think the drive itself is still the most expensive part of the device.


It's not a 2.5" drive in there. The entire iPod is about the size of a 2.5" drive. Go find the price of a 160GB 1.8" drive. Don't use the price of the wrong type of drive in your guesstimates.


The net profit on the typical iPod probably doesn't exceed 20%. Maybe 10% of that could be considered the "Apple premium".

I used it as an example to expand on your first comment about the video capability being irrelevant. Again, my point is that if you are right, they should be able to drop the video portion and charge the same, because as you mention, its "not used that much" anyway and does not drive ipod sales. My point was that they probably could not because people want it and pay for it, even if they don't use it very much.

If they dropped the video portion, people would expect a severe drop in the price, probably alot more than the $20 you mention. Probably even more than $100 because theres alot of perceived value in the video capabilities, even if its relatively cheap to add and its "not used that much".


Ok you got me there. The retail on a 1.8" drive is significantly more.

Just keep in mind that I wasn't remotely suggesting that the video features be dropped. I just didn't think it right for people to overplay its significance. iPods sell very well even in countries that don't have iTunes video for sale, which is still almost all of them.

Uh... yes. I'll keep that in mind... nobody was suggesting that you were suggesting that.

At the end, I agree that video is not that crucial in use, but its HUGE at the point of sale. The idea of putting on and watching a ton of moves has a certain 'sex appeal' to many, even though the average user probably doesn't even know how to put video on there outside of buying it from iTMS.

Then I will have to wait for flash-memory to reach at least 30 GB at a reasonable price.




Even if it is 2-4 years, I don't like the idea of having to turn in my player to a repairservice to replace the battery, which would cost at least 40$ to do.

It would be much better to have a battery-door, where you can slide in a new battery for 5-10$.

That way you could even have multiple batteries at your hand, fully charged and slipping in a new one whenever the other is empty, which would be great for travelling.

I hope the 30GB-ipod-nano in the future will offer a battery-door, using standard and readily available lithium-ion-batteries.

If not, then I will have to look for a player from another competitor.

By the way is the soundquality of the ipod still the best or has it been outclassed?

Nightcrawler

I fully expect that that will never happen.



Careful not to cut off your nose to spite your face.

If you are that concerned about battery life, you can get a variety of battery packs, solar rechargers and the like that attach via the dock connector.

Interesting, is there a battery-pack that would allow to use a rechargeable lithium-ion- or lithium-polymer-battery to be connected via the dock connector?

If so, then my problem were solved, leaving only one question:
Is the ipod, classic or nano, still the mp3-player with the best sound or has it been already outclassed in that department?

Nightcrawler

Here are a couple lithium polymer ones right here.

http://www.amazon.com/Jwin-Electroni...9696259&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...d_i=B000F7853W

I think there are probably others.

I imagine it may be a few months before any designed specifically for the new nano show up.

Hey, here's a lithium-ion one

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPod-Por...9696540&sr=1-2

Thanks for the info, a bit expensive though with 50$ it is even more expensive than a repairservice-replacement of Apple's battery, but at least the option is there.

But what about the soundquality of the ipods, have they still the best one out there or not?

Nightcrawler

These batteries cost more than that. The rechargeable battery for my phone costs almost $40. The rechargeable battery for my Panasonic portable home phone costs $35.

Don't be so sure that you would save too much. These batteries are all very specialized.


If that's your only requirement for a player, then buy a SanDisk, or something else.


It's the same as it has been. It's only the quality of the headphones that remains mediocre.

The idea of a removable battery in a pocket media device is nice in principle, it really doesn't work so well in practice, at least for me. I usually get maybe four years out of such a device, but a hook, catch or latch on the device ends up breaking, so it wouldn't hold a battery anyway.

That's true. I've seen several phones from my daughters friends, as they're always bringing me their broken devices to see if I can fix them.

Most of the time, it's the battery latches, or the small fingers at the top of the battery, or enclosure, that have either broken or worn down from the battery popping out when they're dropped. Sometimes I can fix them, and sometimes not. But the repair services won't do what I do to fix them. Mostly, their parents don't buy the insurance, so they're on their own when they break.

Good argument, on my hi-minidisc I'm very careful when taking the battery out because I fear that the latch might break off.

I have looked a bit more into the battery-topic, and it seems that lithium-ion and lithium-polymer-batteries don't have a memory-effect any more and are better formable and can give more voltage than the nickel-hybrid-batteries.

The major new problem though is that the lithium-batteries lose their capability to hold a charge just by passing time, ie. regardless of the number of charge-cycles, even if the battery is merely sitting on the shelf doing nothing with it, it loses its capability constantly over time.
Lithium-polymer holds on longer than lithium-ion, though.

The other problem is that lithium-batteries seem to have a problem with heat, with the possibility of burning and/or explosion. Ok all batteries have problems with extreme heat, but these new lithium-ones seem to be way more sensitive in that regard. Remember the Sony-debacle with its batteries?

As to the sound-quality of the ipod classic, I have done a bit research in geek-forums around the globe, and there are geeks that measured and compared the soundquality, both subjectively and objectively with curves and such stuff, with the best sounding mp3-players out there which seemed to be irivers and cowon's players.

They found out, that the new ipod classic sounded clearly the best, even beating cowon's d2-player, way better than the previous generations of ipods, which had mediocre sound according to these geeks.

They could attribute the drastic sound-improvement to a new chip in the ipod classic.

So kudos to Apple to have produced the best sounding mp3-player on the market with the ipod classic. I'm not sure if the nano has the same technology, soundwise as the classic.

What is though missing is a line-in and the possibility to record sounds. It would be great if Apple chose to turn the next generation of ipod-classic into a sort of recording-unit with the same or better recording-quality and capabilities than Sony's hi-minidisc-recorders.

That would be great for hobby-musicians and would also jive with Garage-Band.

Oh, it would also be good to include an adapter in the package so that one can operate the ipod classic without battery.
It would also be great if one could use the ipod classic as a generic harddisk with drag and drop capability without being forced to use only itunes.

Nightcrawler

The iPod has line-in on the dock connector. You need a third-party accessory (like this one, which has built-in microphones, but also a 3.5 mm jack for external inputs), but you can use the iPod to record.


You can do that. You have to use iTunes to get music onto the iPod to listen to, but for generic data uses, you just have to tick a box in iTunes' iPod preferences, and the iPod will then show up on your desktop (or "my computer" if you are using Windows), allowing drag-and drop of data to the iPod.

Wow, that's great, that way one can easily use the ipod as a voice-recorder. But one of the reviewers issued a warning not to use it for music-session-recordings as it would constantly skip. Nonetheless it's still great as it means that recording with the ipod is not far off, maybe Apple will work out a professional solution in the next generation.

Like already said it could sell very well with hobby-musicians if the capability and soundquality of the Sony Hi-Minidisc-recorder are matched or even outpaced.




Sounds good, but I wished it would work for music as well, using any application that can handle musicfiles or just drag and drop.

That would also require that the files are saved using standard formats instead of the propiertary one that itunes generates.
It would also be nice to save music as wma.

Nightcrawler

AIFF, WAV, mp3 and AAC are all "standard" formats, not proprietary. AAC was developed and is licensed by the same body that licenses mp3 - the Motion Picture Experts Group. mp3 is part of the MPEG-1 standard, and AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard.

The only proprietary codecs are Apple Lossless and "protected" AAC, which uses Apple's "Fairplay" DRM.

Since AAC is the best lossy codec out there, and mp3 is the only one that's ubiquitous, I don't know why you should care about this?

Here is a 4-channel mixer from Belkin that records directly to a 5G iPod:

http://www.belkin.com/tunestudio/

I don't know if it will work for the Classic but if they haven't changed the dock much it should.

I have iPod nano (new model) which I brought from US. I want to know that if all of the warranties of that iPod which apply in US will also apply in India or not. like if something happens to that iPod, will I be able to send it back to apple for repair or not.

Sachin
QTP

If it was bought in the US, the US warrantee should apply, but I'm not sure about WHERE you would could take it to have that warrantee honored, if you are living in India.