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iPod Nano 5G Review
12.11.09 12:28 AM Filed in: Apple Reviews
Another year, another batch of iPod upgrades. This year, the Nano is the star of the show - featuring a heavily-hyped video recording feature. But, many people are getting bored of the onslaught of marginally improved iPods. Does Apple break the color cycle with the 5G and deliver something truly improved?
This is undoubtedly the best iteration of the iPod Nano to date. It’s not as strong a step forward as the Nano 3G “Fatty,” but everything different here is quite welcome. Apple chose to not increase the memory this year, so 16 gigs is still the largest size available. The GeekGal recommends splurging on the larger model, since it’s $30 more, and 8 gigs fills up quite quickly.
The Good -
The most hyped new feature is the iPod video camera. It shoots low quality video and can apply 15 filters to it, ranging from Security Cam to Cyborg, which makes your video look like it was taken from a Terminator’s POV. The quality is surprisingly good, as is the audio capture. Kudos to Apple on delivering a solid, functional product - for the three people looking to shoot video with effects straight from 80s MTV.
To be honest, the GeekGal finds the whole feature very gimmicky. She predicts only 14-year-old girls that upload Nintendo DSi pics to Flickr will really groove on this feature. But adults? Not so much. Desktop publishing was ruined in the early 90s when every scrapbooking secretary that fancied herself creative could churn out a crappy newsletter with her inkjet. This video feature will guarantee lots of the same self-indulgent Youtube filler. It’s unfortunate that the 5G Nano is unable to take still photographs, because this seems like a much more practical use.
The GeekGal is very happy to see that an FM radio has finally made it to the Nano. It even has Live Pause, meaning you can buffer about 15 minutes of radio and return to it at your leisure. Mac nitpickers have been complaining about the lack of this feature for years. Although GeekGal hasn’t really listened to the radio since, you know, buying an iPod in 2003 - she wasn’t breathlessly waiting. When streaming Internet radio stations like G.I.R.L. are available, maybe she’ll get excited. Still. It’s here, and it’s totally functional - as long as you have a pair of headphones to use as an antenna.
You can tag FM songs by holding down the center button. Conveniently, this will allow you to buy them later from the iTunes Music Store. It might be a self-serving feature for Apple, but GeekGal still applauds it. She’s found the iPhone app Midomi a better solution for identifying randomly overheard new music, but this is a good feature for those poor souls without an iPhone.
The most utilitarian feature of this iPod is the built-in speaker. The volume isn’t loud, and the sound quality is frighteningly muffled, but it’s still very welcome. It’s nice to play a song, or check that the right podcast is synched to your Nano without plugging in a pair of headphones. It’s also been useful in conversation to show certain songs to people. I would not want to go back to a Nano without it.
The VoiceOver feature is also utilitarian, particularly for the visually impaired. Originally developed for the buttonless, display-lacking iPod Shuffle, this feature generates synthesized readings of your song titles - you can hear it by clicking the center button. The GeekGal has found this useful for checking the date of a Podcast in the middle of a run, when it’s not easy to look at the display.
The Bad -
Quiz 2, a randomly generated game show based on your music on the Nano 3G “Fatty” was the greatest iPod game ever made. It’s still absent from the 5g Nano. Maze, Vortex, and Solitaire are the only games here. They’re fun, but they’ve also been done to death on the iPod.
Apple completely missed the boat with the Nike+ implementation. From the wording of the cleverly-worded initial press release, the GeekGal thought she wouldn’t need to plug the white rectangular plastic sensor into the bottom of her Nano anymore to track her runs. This would be nice, since she’s lost three of these, forcing her to buy new Nike+ kits. Finally, the integration of Nike + would be seamless enough for her to consistently track her daily runs.
What she got instead was a crappy built-in pedometer.
And it’s not even up to the NASA-like pedigree of the $0.99 pedometer apps on the iPhone. There is no translation of steps into miles, though the data is uploaded to the online, sharable Nike+ database. The GeekGal knows so many other girls that use their iPod to run, integrating the Nano with the Nike+ shoe sensor would be a very useful feature. Apple, you need to step it up.
A word about the new colors for the 5G line. I like most of them better than the 4G. They’re more complex, with darker chocolatey tones. It’s a more sophisticated palette in general. However, one of them is awful and GeekGal urges you to run away like a frightened villager - the yellow. It’s a harsh, phony color that one would normally associate with the local high school sports teams. It’s so bad, that it’s unusable as a girl’s iPod - it clashed with every workout outfit I tried. I sold it on eBay and bought a new one in red.
The Technobabble -
The clickwheel has been made even smaller in this iteration of the Nano, and the screen size has increased slightly from 2 inches to 2.2 inches. It’s not enough to make a significant difference, and the GeekGal suspects the true reason for the change was to require her to buy new cases.
The video camera produces sickly, unnatural skin tones in indoor low-light situations. If you look at a teardown of the iPod, it’s amazing how small the capture sensor is. These kinds of cameras are infamous for needing to incorporate image stabilization technology to compensate for blur caused by their miniaturized sensors. This is probably the reason the 5G Nano is unable to take still pictures - they would frequently be a blurry mess.
I found the battery life of the new Nano to be excellent, though not substantially different than the last gen. The Apple website claims that you’ll get 24 hours of use - which is pure fantasy. I suppose you could set the display to no brightness and run an audiobook for 24 hours with the volume turned to mute, but no one uses their Nano that way. GeekGal found that she gets about a week of use on a charge - and she changes songs with the frequency of the manically ADHD. Some users have complained of not getting more than 9 hours of use with a charge - if 24 hours ACTUAL hours of battery life are important to you, you won’t find it here.
If you do actually use the video camera, expect a vampiric drain on your battery. In the GeekGal’s tests, the Nano quickly became scorching hot. If you’re planning on recording class lectures, it might be best to pack your MacBook and charging cable as well.
When it does come to watching video on the Nano, it’s a solid experience for a two-inch screen. Because the GeekGal has both an iPhone and a MacBook, and they would be her first choice for movie watching on the go. This is a solid alternative, though. Battery life should last you through about two movies.
Don’t expect to easily convert your movie collection to watch on Apple devices. The conversion software is not built into iTunes, and even the best programs can take several hours to convert a disk to a usable format. Still, it’s likely you’ll already have some choices in your collection, as more and more DVD and BluRay purchases are coming with an iPod-compatible version thrown in for free.
On one hand, it’s hard to argue with free and convenient. But, the more cynical side of the GeekGal knows that these same companies are arguing that you don’t have the legal right to rip the movies you’ve purchased to your iPod - they’re trying to get you used to buying media laden with DRM. If I’ve suffered the embarrassment of being seen buying the “G.I. Joe” BluRay, I feel like I own that media - and it’s mine to pretend to be the Baroness on any device I own.
The Conclusion -
All of the new features of the 5G Nano are nice, but only a handful are actually useful. Truth be told, it’s not very different than the 4G Nano. If you’re looking to save as much money as possible, GeekGal recommends buying a refurbished 4G Nano from the Apple website for $99.
If you’re looking for a highly portable media player, the Nano is still the best, if most obvious choice. Apple has done nothing to mess with a winning formula. $149-$179 is quite reasonable for the high quality product you get.
The most hyped new feature is the iPod video camera. It shoots low quality video and can apply 15 filters to it, ranging from Security Cam to Cyborg, which makes your video look like it was taken from a Terminator’s POV. The quality is surprisingly good, as is the audio capture. Kudos to Apple on delivering a solid, functional product - for the three people looking to shoot video with effects straight from 80s MTV.
To be honest, the GeekGal finds the whole feature very gimmicky. She predicts only 14-year-old girls that upload Nintendo DSi pics to Flickr will really groove on this feature. But adults? Not so much. Desktop publishing was ruined in the early 90s when every scrapbooking secretary that fancied herself creative could churn out a crappy newsletter with her inkjet. This video feature will guarantee lots of the same self-indulgent Youtube filler. It’s unfortunate that the 5G Nano is unable to take still photographs, because this seems like a much more practical use.
The GeekGal is very happy to see that an FM radio has finally made it to the Nano. It even has Live Pause, meaning you can buffer about 15 minutes of radio and return to it at your leisure. Mac nitpickers have been complaining about the lack of this feature for years. Although GeekGal hasn’t really listened to the radio since, you know, buying an iPod in 2003 - she wasn’t breathlessly waiting. When streaming Internet radio stations like G.I.R.L. are available, maybe she’ll get excited. Still. It’s here, and it’s totally functional - as long as you have a pair of headphones to use as an antenna.
You can tag FM songs by holding down the center button. Conveniently, this will allow you to buy them later from the iTunes Music Store. It might be a self-serving feature for Apple, but GeekGal still applauds it. She’s found the iPhone app Midomi a better solution for identifying randomly overheard new music, but this is a good feature for those poor souls without an iPhone.
The most utilitarian feature of this iPod is the built-in speaker. The volume isn’t loud, and the sound quality is frighteningly muffled, but it’s still very welcome. It’s nice to play a song, or check that the right podcast is synched to your Nano without plugging in a pair of headphones. It’s also been useful in conversation to show certain songs to people. I would not want to go back to a Nano without it.
The VoiceOver feature is also utilitarian, particularly for the visually impaired. Originally developed for the buttonless, display-lacking iPod Shuffle, this feature generates synthesized readings of your song titles - you can hear it by clicking the center button. The GeekGal has found this useful for checking the date of a Podcast in the middle of a run, when it’s not easy to look at the display.
The Bad -
Quiz 2, a randomly generated game show based on your music on the Nano 3G “Fatty” was the greatest iPod game ever made. It’s still absent from the 5g Nano. Maze, Vortex, and Solitaire are the only games here. They’re fun, but they’ve also been done to death on the iPod.
Apple completely missed the boat with the Nike+ implementation. From the wording of the cleverly-worded initial press release, the GeekGal thought she wouldn’t need to plug the white rectangular plastic sensor into the bottom of her Nano anymore to track her runs. This would be nice, since she’s lost three of these, forcing her to buy new Nike+ kits. Finally, the integration of Nike + would be seamless enough for her to consistently track her daily runs.
What she got instead was a crappy built-in pedometer.
And it’s not even up to the NASA-like pedigree of the $0.99 pedometer apps on the iPhone. There is no translation of steps into miles, though the data is uploaded to the online, sharable Nike+ database. The GeekGal knows so many other girls that use their iPod to run, integrating the Nano with the Nike+ shoe sensor would be a very useful feature. Apple, you need to step it up.
A word about the new colors for the 5G line. I like most of them better than the 4G. They’re more complex, with darker chocolatey tones. It’s a more sophisticated palette in general. However, one of them is awful and GeekGal urges you to run away like a frightened villager - the yellow. It’s a harsh, phony color that one would normally associate with the local high school sports teams. It’s so bad, that it’s unusable as a girl’s iPod - it clashed with every workout outfit I tried. I sold it on eBay and bought a new one in red.
The Technobabble -
The clickwheel has been made even smaller in this iteration of the Nano, and the screen size has increased slightly from 2 inches to 2.2 inches. It’s not enough to make a significant difference, and the GeekGal suspects the true reason for the change was to require her to buy new cases.
The video camera produces sickly, unnatural skin tones in indoor low-light situations. If you look at a teardown of the iPod, it’s amazing how small the capture sensor is. These kinds of cameras are infamous for needing to incorporate image stabilization technology to compensate for blur caused by their miniaturized sensors. This is probably the reason the 5G Nano is unable to take still pictures - they would frequently be a blurry mess.
I found the battery life of the new Nano to be excellent, though not substantially different than the last gen. The Apple website claims that you’ll get 24 hours of use - which is pure fantasy. I suppose you could set the display to no brightness and run an audiobook for 24 hours with the volume turned to mute, but no one uses their Nano that way. GeekGal found that she gets about a week of use on a charge - and she changes songs with the frequency of the manically ADHD. Some users have complained of not getting more than 9 hours of use with a charge - if 24 hours ACTUAL hours of battery life are important to you, you won’t find it here.
If you do actually use the video camera, expect a vampiric drain on your battery. In the GeekGal’s tests, the Nano quickly became scorching hot. If you’re planning on recording class lectures, it might be best to pack your MacBook and charging cable as well.
When it does come to watching video on the Nano, it’s a solid experience for a two-inch screen. Because the GeekGal has both an iPhone and a MacBook, and they would be her first choice for movie watching on the go. This is a solid alternative, though. Battery life should last you through about two movies.
Don’t expect to easily convert your movie collection to watch on Apple devices. The conversion software is not built into iTunes, and even the best programs can take several hours to convert a disk to a usable format. Still, it’s likely you’ll already have some choices in your collection, as more and more DVD and BluRay purchases are coming with an iPod-compatible version thrown in for free.
On one hand, it’s hard to argue with free and convenient. But, the more cynical side of the GeekGal knows that these same companies are arguing that you don’t have the legal right to rip the movies you’ve purchased to your iPod - they’re trying to get you used to buying media laden with DRM. If I’ve suffered the embarrassment of being seen buying the “G.I. Joe” BluRay, I feel like I own that media - and it’s mine to pretend to be the Baroness on any device I own.
The Conclusion -
All of the new features of the 5G Nano are nice, but only a handful are actually useful. Truth be told, it’s not very different than the 4G Nano. If you’re looking to save as much money as possible, GeekGal recommends buying a refurbished 4G Nano from the Apple website for $99.
If you’re looking for a highly portable media player, the Nano is still the best, if most obvious choice. Apple has done nothing to mess with a winning formula. $149-$179 is quite reasonable for the high quality product you get.