The Impossibly Small iPod nano

Okay, I admit, and if you haven’t noticed by now, I’m a collector of iPods. I own three already, including the shuffle, the mini and “the brick “(as some of you may remember). In case you’re wondering what I do with all those iPods, each has a purpose. The shuffle I use for running/exercise, the mini is hooked into my car and I use “the brick” for file backups. Well, Apple came out with a new head-turning iPod design that I could not refuse. With a bright color screen and small, compact size, I had to add this one to my collection too.

The iPod nano is 62% smaller than the iPod mini, and if I wanted to, I can discreetly fit it into the front pocket of my jeans without it being noticeable. It takes everything you love about other iPods, shrinks it, and shrinks it again, and only weighs 1.5 ounces. That’s less than a single CD case. The dimensions are 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches, or think of it as being five dimes long and two pennies wide. Yes, it’s very small, and very cool! Although it doesn’t have an FM tuner or voice recorder built-in, the 1.5-inch color screen gives it a nice eye candy interface. As with my other iPods, it has excellent sound quality and charges and syncs via USB (1.1 and 2.0).

With the nano’s bright color screen, you can view the photos downloaded from your computer (holds up to 25,000) and view the full-color album art of the song you’re currently playing. You can also sync your contacts, calendars and to-do lists. The battery will last you 14 hours, and it takes an hour and a half to charge it 80% or three hours for the full charge. The easy-to-use click wheel makes it simple to navigate the menus, fast forward, rewind, play pause or control the volume.

I guess you can kind of think of the iPod nano as a hybrid of the iPod shuffle, iPod mini and the full-sized color iPods. I think it’s supposed to replace the now discontinued iPod mini. It comes standard with earbud headphones, a USB cable and a dock adapter. Of course, an array of other accessories are out there, including colorful armbands ($29), lanyard headphones ($39), set of five tubes (to change the color of your nano - $29), a dock for convenient syncing and charging ($29), and more.

The iPod nano is available in black and white 2GB (500 songs) and 4GB (1,000 songs) models. The 2GB is $199 and the 4GB is $249 at the Apple Store Ala Moana or online at www.apple.com.

If you’re wondering what purpose this fourth iPod will serve for me, well, I don’t know yet, but it’s too cool not to have.