iPod Nano

Alongside the Motorola/iTunes ROKR phone announcement came word of another impressive design achievement out of 1 Infinite Loop. The iPod Nano takes advantage of recent drops in flash memory prices and increases in capacity to create an iPod completely based on flash. Yes, we've already seen that with the iPod Shuffle, but the Nano has a full color display and clickwheel, allowing the user to choose exactly what they want to hear.

The Nano is named appropriately for its physical size, but the storage space of 2- and 4- GB is anything but tiny. The pricing starts at $199, making this a nice midlevel (above Shuffle, but below the larger iPods) offering. I wonder what's to become of the hard disk based iPod Minis out there... perhaps they are getting more affordable on eBay this week.

Comparisions

Apple Looking at the detailed specs, the standard iPod weighs in at 5.9 or 6.4 ounces, while the Nano weighs a mere 1.9 ounces. The storage capacity is much less, but the Nano is also capable of photo slideshows on its LCD screen! There is, however, no video-out jack.

Also of interest to those familiar with Apple's ongoing difficulties with battery life is that the iPod Nano cuts charging time down to 3 hours while keeping the playback time to about 14 hours. This seems  a siginificant stride due in no small part to the use of flash memory rather than energy-hungry hard disks.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this product is headed in the future, and I'll be keeping my eye on the ROKR phone as well, posting updates as they become available.