An energetic and obviously healthy Steve Jobs (pancreatic cancer survivor, recently had surgery in March) took to the stage in the Apple mothership’s Fall iPod refresh — which featured, among other things, the new iPod Nano 5G (5th Gen).
Sporting a number of improvements from its 4G predecessor, the iPod Nano is Cupertino’s answer for your holiday budget iPod itch. Let’s look at the features care of the review from Macworld.com.
What you see
The Nano 5G is alike in dimensions to its 4G brother. At first glance though, you might think that the 5G is a bit taller. Macworld says that here:
…hold the two side-by-side and the 5G iPod appears to be taller than its sibling. Place them on a table and the illusion disappears. What creates this illusion is the 5G’s 2.2-inch (diagonal) display—0.2 inches taller than the screen found on the 4G nano. The difference may not sound like much, but when you compare the two, you see that Apple has taken advantage of the extra space by enlarging the fonts and placing a little more space between menu items (as well as placing more items on the screen, in some cases). To accommodate the longer screen, Apple moved the clickwheel down a bit as well as made it a little smaller.
On the back, you will see the obvious difference: the new video camera on the 5G (and the microphone unit) — very conspicuous on the previously smooth back of the 4G version. There are a number of modifications on the bottom, as well as a new internal speaker, a-la the Touch.
And the bottom of the newest nano has the headphone port on the left of the Dock connector (as you look at the display) rather than on the right side (its location on the 4G nano).
The other difference you’ll notice is that if you press Play without connecting your headphones, the 5G nano will play audio through a new, internal speaker. Its sound quality is comparable to that of the iPod touch—very tinny and useful only for previewing songs or, if you’re just this side of desperate, listening to the audio that accompanies the video you’ve just shot.
On the new Video Camera
This feature is mostly a very handy addition to the iPod Nano, but as Macworld discovers, it is designed for mainly shooting for fun, and not your hardcore or professional camerawork. It is, in all respects, a funky media player that has a bonus video shooter, rather than the other way around.
Steve Jobs was careful not to compare the quality of the nano’s video to that of today’s pocket camcorders, and rightly so. For its intended purpose—shooting videos of your friends and family and posting the results up on YouTube—the nano’s video is acceptable. But it’s not as good as video shot by an iPhone 3GS , which isn’t all that good, much less the video shot by most of today’s dedicated pocket camcorders.
Audio and Video
With all the spiffy new features, one might be inclined to forget that the iPod Nano still excels in what it was born to do — play audio and video. The music, on any decent pair of earphone or if you connect it to one of those dock audio systems, is still very much top quality audio as we have come to expect from the iPod line. And yes, the slightly bigger screen makes a big difference.
The 5G nano uses a TFT display whereas the previous nanos have used LCDs. Compared to my 4G nano, the 5G’s display is a little bluer. Take the older iPod away, however, and you don’t notice it. Video is enhanced by the larger screen. I compared the same episode of Dexter on 4G and 5G nano screens and although the picture was only slightly larger on the 5G nano, every little bit helps and the difference between the two was noticeable.
Other additional features
Aside from these, the Nano 5G also brings a number of new features into the model. This model already has a new Radio feature. I guess Apple (belatedly) realized that adding this feature — the number of people expecting it on a portable media device versus the price of adding it — was really a no-brainer.
With the new microphone unit integrated, Apple has also put a Speech Recognition feature, a blessing for the visually impaired. For the fitness buffs, there is actually a pedometer — measuring your steps, distance traveled, approximate calories burned — built into the Nano (wow).
Click here to read Macworld.com’s full review.
MacPCWiz’s Verdict
What we have here is a definite choice for people wanting an upgrade for the holidays– the Nano 5G is a new, beefed-up portable media device filled with new features. When you compare the 4G Nano to this one, it’s a very simple choice to make — go and get the 5G. The iPod Nano 5G comes in 8GB and 16GB models.
