Apple iPod nano 8GB - Purple - 4th Generation

This nano has had some vast improvements from the first generation all those years back. The screen has enlarged, and is very good. The colours and clarity is exceptional for something this small. It is a lot thinner, less than 1cm, and has a nice curved shape. It has a new feature not before seen on the nano, let alone any ipod, and this is a shaking the ipod to change track. The genius software is very good and I find very useful and selects suitable matches for my music library. Also, new with this generation is the accelerometer built in. This allows you to turn the ipod on its side to watch video. The price is very good, but is still expensive for its capacity. However, this is made up for in superb free software that is very easy to use and master. Also, this is by far, the most accessory orrientated MP3/4 player. However saying this; some of the new generation ipods including this one don't work on old docking stations. You may want to be aware of this if you intend to use old accesories.

love love love it. Great new ipod, gorgeous purple colour I had a silver nano and 3rd generation I found did not have enough memory. Now I have 2 audio books, all my cds, podcasts, music videos and Im still not at half capacity. So glad I bought this new ipod. Would recomment to anyone. Only drawback I am having to buy another travel charger but I can live with that. So easy to use and when I am in bed listening to my audio books I can adjust volume etc with my thumb without looking. Such a novely being able to watch tv on such a little screen. What a great invention. Some people knock apple ipods but lets face it the design is stunning and the other mp3s just dont come close. Buy one you wont be sorry.Its just been on holiday with me and I hate flying get very bored and aggravated with noisy people that I seem to get stuck with. Not this time, 4 hour flight passed great watching Ashes to Ashes series one on ipod. Best thing I have ever bought.

I've had one of these for a couple of weeks now and so far, it's fantastic. When these came out, I thought it'd be an ideal time to replace my old 2nd gen Nano.

I cannot fault the design at all. It's very similar to the design of the 2nd gen Nano in ways and it's very sensible. I don't know why they designed the 3rd gen Nanos the way they did... it was taking a step backwards. The design of this Nano is excellent. It is a good aluminium casing, which doesn't get covered in fingerprints and doesn't scratch easily (the colour choices are fantastic too!), the screen and click wheel are well placed and the screen is the perfect size. The curved design works tremendously well... in width and height, there's hardly any difference between this and my 2nd gen Nano, but the curved design makes it feel a lot smaller. It is easily small enough to fit in the pockets of all my jeans.

I found set-up to be very quick and painless - I was ready to go with it in 15 minutes. Obviously, I already had iTunes installed, with all my tunes on the program already, so that sped things up, inevitably. But, if my experience of setting up my first iPod is anything to go by - that was quick and painless also. I believe it took me between half an hour and one hour (including installing iTunes, adding my songs to the library and loading everything onto the iPod). Battery life is quite good too. I use it for approximately an hour and a half a day, 5 days a week and so far I've only had to charge it once (yesterday).

In terms of using the device, it's ever so easy. They have kept things pretty consistent, so it didn't take me long at all to adapt to using this one. I'm sure that first-time users will also find it very simple. The menus are clear and intuitive, the click wheel is very user-friendly (ever so slightly too sensitive, but it's by no means a problem) and you can listen by album, artist, genre etc, which is great. The new shake to shuffle feature is a good one, though I can't say I've used it much, as I tend to listen by album. The cover flow feature is a nice one, though nothing particularly special. It's a nice alternative way of scrolling through your albums, but it's by no means a necessity. I do, however, love the feature that if you turn the Nano sideways when viewing photos or videos, that it flips the view to be horizontal - it's extremely handy and really enhances viewing. The screen is also sharp and bright and renders colours very well.

Onto the most important thing - sound quality. I've found it to be ok. It's not brilliant, but it's no worse than on my old Nano. The volume level is set too low, in my opinion. I've tried setting it higher, but it just reverts back as soon as I exit that screen. I have to have it at almost maximum volume most of the time if there's any kind of noise around (normal traffic, lots of people etc) to get it to sound decent, which is a bit of a pain really (there's nothing wrong with my hearing). It's the only reason I've dropped my rating of it a star. Still, having said that, it's good enough for me. I'm not looking for home-audio-system quality... just something that sounds fine and is easily portable so that I can listen to music while on the move and it's brilliant for that. The 8GB capacity is perfectly adequate for my needs and I think it's a competitive price. In my opinion, this is a great little gadget and I'm very happy with my purchase.