Apple iPod nano (6th generation)

The latest, shrunken touch-screen iPod nano marks a rare misstep from Apple. Because it is an iPod, the 6th-generation nano works seamlessly with a graceful user interface, but it's a flawed concept. Last year's 5th-gen nano came with a larger screen, a video camera, and video playback. Frankly, the only thing it lacked was a multi-touch screen, but it was a great deal at $149 (8GB) and $179 (16GB). At identical prices and capacities, the new nano has a tiny multi-touch screen with no video capture or playback. The least-expensive video-capable iPod is now the $229 8GB touch ($229, ) so if you're on a budget, but want video in your iPod, you're out of luck. Simply put, this nano should be the new iPod shuffle ($49, )and it should be priced like a shuffle.

Design
Did we mention the new nano looks like an iPod shuffle with a screen? The long, slender, sexy nano is no more. At 0.7 ounces and 1.5 by 1.6 by 0.3 inches (HWD), it's not quite small enough to be swept away by a gentle breeze, but a modest gust might do the trick. That's where the clip, that's built into the back of the anodized aluminum frame, comes in handy. The Volume and Power buttons live on the thin top panel, while the 30-pin connector for USB computer sync and charging, along with the headphone jack, can be found on the bottom panel. The previous nano's 2.2-inch, 376-by-240 pixel display has been downgraded to a 1.5-inch, 240-by-240 pixel screen that occupies the entire front panel. There's no built-in microphone, but you can record voice memos if you upgrade to any Apple-certified mic-enabled earphones. Apple's anemic earbuds and a sync cable are included in the box.

The nano remains colorful this time around, but now, since it's so small, you see less of that color. This generation comes in metallic hues including light and dark gray, aqua, lime green, orange, pink, or like our test unit, there's a Product RED version. If you opt for the red nano, Apple gives a portion of the purchase price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.

User Interface and Navigation
The new user interface won't be mistaken for iOS on the iPhones or the iPod touch, but the icon-based system is intuitive like with all Apple products. While the nano lacks an accelerometer, Apple cleverly designed the screen so that a fingertip twist turns it in four different directions so it's never upside down. Like you can in iOS, you can rearrange the icons, which include: Albums, Artists, Clock, Composers, Fitness, Genius Mixes, Genres, Now Playing, Playlists, Photos, Podcasts, Radio, Settings, and Songs. None of them can be added nor subtracted, however—this is not an apps-based device like the iPod touch. That said, the inclusion (or retention, I should say) of the Nike+ fitness app and built-in pedometer to customize your workouts helps save the nano from feeling completely feature-barren, as does the FM radio tuner, that, for so long, was absent from iPods.

The multi-touch-enabled screen is every bit as sensitive and responsive as the iPhone's, but the familiar finger gestures aren't here. For instance, when viewing photos, if you want to zoom in—and because the screen is so small, you'll often want to—you tap the screen once rather than use the familiar pinch-and-expand finger motion. This zooms to a fixed interval, and tapping again zooms out. If you load photos captured in widescreen 16:9 format, you can't zoom at all. Photos don't look particularly impressive on such a small screen, but the photo section is still easy to navigate and a worthy inclusion. But the first time you peruse your photo library, you'll see why there's no video support—the screen is way too small. You can choose from nine different wallpapers, that can be swapped in the Settings menu, but you can't use your own photos.

Due to the small screen size, there's no more Cover Flow support, which is a bit ironic because Cover Flow is so much more engaging with a touch screen. Still, album art is displayed when playing music, filling the screen entirely, while Playback controls appear over the artwork and disappear when not in use. Even without Cover Flow, the streamlined process of finding an artist or song in the music menu is as intuitive as it has ever been.

Audio Performance
Audio will always sound better if you upgrade the low-quality earbuds that Apple ships with every iPod model. Lose the buds in favor of a more secure-fitting, higher performance pair of earphones. (Our Headphone Buying Guide is a good place to start your search.)

As far as audio file support, the nano can handle AAC (protected and unprotected), HE-AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, Audible, MP3, MP3 VBR, and WAV files. For photos JPEG and most other common image formats are supported.

The FM radio retains its 15-minute rewind feature, which is a fancy way of saying you can pause live radio for up to 15 minutes before the nano's recording cache gets filled. The recorded radio segments aren't stored as files anywhere—you press the Play icon in the radio menu to pick up where you left off. You can set a limitless number of favorite stations—I created nearly fifty—and doing so is as simple as a tap. Your earbuds serve as the antenna, and when signal is strong enough, you'll get station names and song information scrolling across the screen.

Apple rates the nano's battery life for audio playback at 24 hours—a respectable number for a touch-screen device that's this small. Our own battery test results will be posted here shortly.

A Confusing New Direction
Apple giveth, and on the rare occasion, Apple taketh away, like it's done here. With the latest nano, a multi-touch screen on a 1.54-inch device just isn't that impressive, and isn't nearly as valuable as a video camera. This nano feels like a shuffle with a touch screen, only it's not priced like one; it's at least $50 too expensive for its limited feature set.

If you're not tied to iTunes, consider the Samsung YP-R0 ($79, ) or the Archos 3cam vision ($99.99, ). Neither is as graceful as an iPod, but they're both less expensive and capable of video playback in addition to music—the latter also captures photos and video. And the designers of pocket video recorders like the Flip are breathing a sigh of relief that the new nano didn't retain its video camera, or worse, get an upgrade to HD. If what you really want is a pocket-size video recorder in this price range, check out the Kodak Playsport Video Camera ($149.95, ) or the Sony Bloggie ($169.99, ), or you could just cough up the $230 for an iPod touch.

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