The original iPod nano

iPod nano
Manufacturer: Apple (product page)
System requirements: Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.3.4 or later, USB port; Windows PC running Windows 2000 SP4 or Windows XP SP2, USB port
Price: US$199 (2GB), US$249

As we all know, Apple's iPod has dominated the digital music player scene since its launch in 2001, much like an aardvark busting through a termite mound. As hard-drive-based players have gotten smaller and the price of flash-based players has dropped, Apple seized on the opportunity to dive into the flash-based market with the iPod shuffle. It was a wildly successful move for Apple, which has grabbed close to 46 percent of the flash-based player market since its inception. However, there were still many reasons for users not to get the shuffle—namely, the lack of a screen and sophisticated controls. The task for Apple was to create a music player that was somehow a marriage between the minute size of the iPod shuffle and the versatility of a regular iPod.

Last Tuesday, Apple's solution came in the form of the iPod nano, a mini-mini-version of their current iPod color line. That's right, it's more miniature than the iPod mini, and the display is color! It's clear that these two superior elements are the reasons why Apple decided to do away with the original iPod mini line; however many consumers are upset that the iPod nano's storage capacity is smaller than what the iPod mini used to be. At 2GB and 4GB, though, the capacities are higher than the current iPod shuffle line and the pricing falls right in line in between shuffles and regular color iPods.

A brief word about sound quality: the iPod nano uses the same audio codec (the WM8975) as the 4G iPods. The first and second generation iPods used the WM8721, while the 3G iPods and iPod mini used the WM8731L. Since the iPod nano uses the same audio codech chip as the 4G, U2, and iPod photo players, its sound quality will be nearly identical to those other players.

Opening the package

The out-of-box experience was nothing less than expected from Apple: excessive, high-end, and oh-so-delightful. When purchasing our 2GB black iPod nano for this review, it even came in a "commemorative" iPod nano bag.

Opening the slim nano box was pretty much the same as opening any other iPod, and the contents were laid out in a similar manner—simple, elegant, and organized.

It's when you take the iPod nano out of the box that the true experience begins. That thing is really, really nano! Photos don't even convey how small and light the iPod nano really is. In fact at first, at 3.5" x 1.6" x 0.27" and 1.5 ounces, it almost seemed too small and too light for me in my hand. The thinness is marvelous from an aesthetic and engineering standpoint, but my first thought upon holding it was don't break it. We'll get to exploring that thought later, though.

The iPod nano is so thin that it slips effortlessly into the coin pocket on a pair of women's jeans, with room to spare. It certainly makes the "thousand songs right in your pocket" example a reality, especially to women who have very little pocket space and are much more adverse to carrying bulkier electronics in those pockets than men. The iPod nano barely shows a profile in the pocket and it's easy to forget about its presence after carrying it around for awhile.

The iPod nano comes with all of the standard accessories, including the standard white iPod headphones (some people have poined out that providing black iPod nano with white headphones is a bit of a fashion faux pas, but I'll leave that rant for a different time), a USB cable, and a dock adapter for use of your iPod nano with a standard iPod dock. However, the nano's dock adapter must be too complex for us two lowly engineers, because getting it to fit with either of our regular iPod docks was (and still is) truly perplexing. After nearly thirty minutes of fiddling between the two of us, we finally gave up on the nano dock adapter altogether. Worry not, however, as the iPod nano plugs just dandily into a regular dock without the adapter—it just sits straight up in the middle of the designated iPod area instead of being flush with plastic all the way around.

Update: After publishing this review last night, we had several readers contact us with information concerning the so-called "Dock Adapter." Dan Frakes from Playlist Magazine provided us with the most information and it came straight from the marketing folks in attendance at the special event. According to Dan, the "dock adapter" is meant to be to be used with future iPod accessories so that they will be able to connect to practically any new iPod. In a utopian world, this would mean that your new iPod would instantly be compatible with any new accessory that offered support for the "universal dock adapter." See this Apple Knowledge Base article for more info.

6 Things to Consider Before You Buy A Shredder

1. Users - If you are the only user and you will be shredding just a few pages at home everyday, the smallest personal shredder will suffice. Large busy offices will need an office or commercial/departmental shredder that can handle constant use and larger capacities of shredding.

2. Security - You can choose between strip and cross cut shredders that will reduce material to pieces of varying sizes. Cross cut shredders provide more security as they reduce paper to small confetti like squares whereas a strip cut shredder will shred a sheet of paper vertically into strips. High security shredders are available that meet Department of Defense, FACTA, HIPAA, and other restrictions for industries regulated by the government.6

3. Sheet capacity - If you think that number of users may not be a good way to find a shredder (because users will be shredding either abnormally large or small amounts), then sheets per day or sheets per pass may be better ways of evaluating a potential shredder.

Sheets per pass is the number of sheets a shredder will accept at one time. They range from about 5 for a personal shredder to 500 or more with large industrial shredders. Hospitals and law or other offices needing to shred entire files or stacks of paper at one time will want to look at a larger commercial or industrial shredder.

Sheets per day is the number of sheets a shredder will accept in a day. This is a good measure if you plan to use the shredder continually all day or at intervals for capacities that max out the shredder’s sheets per pass. Large industrial shredders will provide a value in tons per day.

4. Materials being shredded - There are some regular paper shredders for home and office use available that will handle paper with staples, paper clips, as well as CDs and credit cards. Some models will have a separate slot to insert CDs and credit cards. Industrial paper shredders are available for a business to shred cardboard for packaging, as well as metals, plastics, fabrics, and other materials.

5. Features - Optional features/accessories include automatic oilers, conveyors, balers, CD slots (see “Materials being shredded”), automatic safety features, and more.

Automatic oilers are add-on containers that store and dispense oil as the shredder is used. Shredders should be oiled regularly for optimal performance, and automatic oilers will do this without an operator remembering to oil at certain intervals. Auto oilers are usually only used on industrial shredders.

A baler is a machine that condenses shredded waste into compact cubes, or bales. The bales can be disposed of much more easily than large, industrial volumes of shredded material that simply fall into a collection bin.
Safety/efficiency features include auto start/stop so an operator can simply feed paper into the opening without turning the shredder on or off. Reverse mode easily clears paper jams, and various other indicating lights to tell when there is something that needs attention.

Conveyors belts are optional on some industrial shredders to automatically feed paper into the opening as the shredder is working. This allows a user to put down much more paper than the shredder shreds in one pass and leave it to the shredder to feed itself the paper as it can handle it.

6. Space - look at the dimensions of the shredder to make sure it will fit into the space where you want to store it. People who buy shredders are sometimes surprised that they don’t fit under their desks or in the corner of the office where they wanted.