Apple iPod Nano 8GB review

Apple's latest iPod Nano has the same 2in 320x240-pixel colour screen as the previous Nano (see Shopper, What's New 238), but it's in portrait rather than landscape orientation, giving more room for long lists of songs.

Like the iPod Touch, the Nano has an accelerometer, so holding it on its side rotates the image when viewing videos or photos, making better use of the screen space.

When playing music, holding the Nano in the landscape position activates Cover Flow mode, which lets you browse music by scrolling through a virtual shelf of 3D album covers. Cover Flow looked smoother on the Nano than it did on the iPod Classic.

You can play songs in random order by shaking the Nano. Shaking it again skips to another random track, but we felt quite self-conscious doing this in public. It works only when the hold switch is off, so it won't shuffle your songs unintentionally.

Like the Classic, the Nano supports Genius playlists, which suggest songs similar to the one you're listening to. A feature unique to the Nano is the spoken menu descriptions. This is designed for the blind, but it could be useful for controlling playback without removing it from your pocket. The Nano also records audio if your earphones have an integrated mic.

These new features may sound gimmicky, but the Nano's long battery life certainly isn't: it lasted 34 hours and 33 minutes when playing music. Other players had longer battery life when playing video, but the Nano still did well, managing nearly six hours.

The Nano sounded clear, detailed and rich, but you'll have to replace the included earphones for the best sound quality. As with the iPod Classic, using the equaliser to boost the bass resulted in some distortion, but it was much less noticeable in the Nano.

The Nano is a great music player, but Philips' 8GB GoGear has even longer battery life and costs £12 less.

Author: Barry de la Rosa