Pictures really don't do the Nano justice - it is without doubt one of the slickest, best looking pieces of consumer electronics you're ever likely to see.
Every edge is curved, even down to the glass covering the screen. It's also incredibly light.
The new cheaper version of its iPod music player - costing £109 and described by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as 'the thinnest iPod ever' - is just 6.2millimetres thick.
Small and perfectly formed: The new cheaper iPod Nano, with 'shake to shuffle' and green credentials, is curved on all edges
It includes a two inch widescreen display.
The menus will be familar to any iPod user but the system has been upgraded to take advantage of the Nano's new bigger screen.
Video is impressive, and simply putting the iPod on its side switches the display, thanks to the inbuilt sensors.
These are also used for the Nano's newest party trick - 'shake to shuffle' where the user changes songs simply by giving it a shake.
Last night Mr Jobs revealed that the company had sold more than 160million iPods since the MP3 player was introduced seven years ago - it now has a 73per cent share of the music player market. Speaking in San Francisco, he said the iPod Nano - 'the world's most popular music player' - had been made even better for this holiday season.
He paused briefly to laugh off reports of his poor health, walking past a screen which read: 'The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.'
Concerns about the chief executive's health emerged in June when he introduced the latest version of the iPhone at a conference in San Francisco.
The 53-year-old MrJobs looked thinner than usual and in 2004 he announced that he had undergone successful surgery to remove a rare type of pancreatic cancer.
Last night he said that he could stand to gain some weight but added: 'I'm doing just fine. I'm healthy.'
Mr Jobs went on to list the new iPod's green credentials, including arsenic-free glass and a mercury and PVC-free body that is 'highly recyclable'.
However, experts said that the new product reflected how big an impact the credit crunch is having on the electronics market.
The new products are impressive but they are a refinement and just slightly better and cheaper,' said Stuart Miles of gadget site Pocket Lint.
This is a clear indication that the credit crunch is really affecting electronics companies now. They are not releasing the 'big bang' products but focusing on giving consumers value for money.'
Apple has also updated its iTunes software to include a new 'Genius' feature, which builds customised playlists based on whatever song the user is listening to.
Genius allows us to analyse the music collections of millions of users to see what songs they listen to, and how often,' said Oliver Schusser of Apple.
This then allows us to create playlists of songs that we think will fit together really well.'
The company denied that it launched the service to collect data about customers. 'We do not collect any user identity data, just the details of their music library,' said Mr Schusser.
The new service is expected to boost sales from Apple's online music store, which now boasts 65 million customers worldwide.
We really want people to focus on the music again,' said Christi Wilkerson of Apple.
With the Nano, and the new version of the iPod Touch we also launched today, we think we can do that.'
Apple also responded to customer complaints about its new iPhone 3G, which has suffered call problems and crashes.
A software update which will be distributed on Friday will fix 'lots of bugs', Apple said.
Overall, the new Nano really shows just how far ahead of the competition Apple really is.
It's not a revolution, and owners of previous iPod Nanos probably shouldn't bother.
But this is, without doubt, far and away the best small MP3 player on the market.
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Well we have had one of these for a couple of weeks now, and we have been impressed. Its not all roses, but overall we think it is a good machine at a very good price.
The player comes in a professional retail box with all the accessories, charger, cables, tv cables, manual, pouch etc. The player boasts its whopping 4" TFT screen, which really is the Daddy when it comes to portable media players. Its menu system is not quite as easy to use as we would hope, but it is simple unlike some of the other Chinese products which are not intuitive at all. It startups quickly which is a bonus and you can see from the startup display it is a quality screen. What also took us by surprise was the depth of the player, a mere 16mm. We cant beleive you can cram all that technology into one device so thin!
The player is packed full of functions, TV recording, TV playback, SD card support, AVI playback, games any many more. You can record from just about anything and play it back where and when you want!
What we did find was lacking was the internal memory. Its current max seems to be around 8Gb which seems a little dissapointing for a player of this standard. There is rumour of the 16Gb version being released by the end of Summer 08 which will be the perfect size.
So all in all a very good player, you will need to use a memory card with this to get the most out of it, but the playback is crystal clear and easy to use.
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Last November, Microsoft released the first-generation Zune to a predominantly iPod-toting nation. While the first-generation Zune is not without its devotees, the device came to epitomize Microsoft's awkwardness at marketing itself as hip. Having survived its freshman hazing, the Zune is back for its sophomore revenge, and the iPod has every reason to be frightened. With a new design, higher capacity, wireless sync capability, larger screen, and integrated support for audio and video podcasts, the new 80GB Zune ($249) is finally giving everyone a true alternative to the iPod.
Design
The 80GB Zune cuts a much slimmer figure than its bricklike older brother. Measuring 4.3 inches high by 2.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep, Microsoft shaved some considerable bulk off the Zune's thickness, while nearly tripling its capacity. Beyond its more pocket-worthy form, the two major improvements to the Zune's hardware design are its screen and its navigation pad.
With a diagonal measurement of 3.2 inches, the 80GB Zune's luxuriously large LCD screen leaves the 2.5-inch screen of the iPod Classic in the dust. The screen size may seem like a marginal improvement from the first-generation Zune's 3-inch screen, but the 80GB Zune's use of an optical glass screen shield (instead of plastic) further distinguishes it from its older sibling, as well as the competition. The Zune's new glass screen not only affords the device a sophisticated feel, but it also provides a more scratch-resistant surface with less optical distortion than the ubiquitous plastic variety.
The second major improvement engineered into the new fleet of Zune MP3 players is a completely unique navigation control that Microsoft dubs the Zune Pad. You can think of the Zune Pad as a cross between a standard four-direction navigation pad and a laptop's touch pad. With the Zune Pad, users can navigate menus by either pressing or sliding their finger in four directions, and select items by clicking on the middle of the pad. We we're initially skeptical about the Zune Pad's usability compared with the tried-and-true click pad of the first-generation Zune, but after just a few minutes, we found the Zune's old interface to be positively archaic. Navigating lengthy song lists is a breeze, especially with an accelerated scroll kicking in when the pad is held down. The new Zune Pad interface also lets you skip through songs, photos, and radio stations with just a light brush of the finger. Buttons for play/pause and menu still flank each side of the Zune's control pad and behave exactly as they did in the first-generation Zune.
The most significant design change to the Zune is an overhauled graphic user interface that no longer looks like a rehash of the Portable Media Center operating system found on the Toshiba Gigabeat S. While the critically beloved "twist" interface of the first-generation Zune remains, the main menu screen has been replaced with stunning, oversized text that takes readability to the next level. This same main menu screen can be customized with a background image from your digital photo collection. Existing Zune loyalists will be very happy to know that Microsoft is offering the new Zune operating system as a free upgrade to all first-generation Zune owners.
The 80GB Zune has a handful of smaller cosmetic changes worth noting, as well. The back of the Zune is now covered with a matte-finished aluminum etched with the Zune logo (or custom-etched by Microsoft's ZuneOriginals.net). The top edge of the Zune now features an inch-long mirrored plastic window for its built-in Wi-Fi antenna. Lastly, the 80GB Zune includes a pair of high-quality, Zune-branded, sound-isolating earphones constructed with a cloth-braided cable.
Features
We admit the first-generation Zune certainly wasn't the coolest-looking MP3 player on the block, but its features were fairly advanced. With subscription music support, wide-screen video playback, Wi-Fi music sharing, high-quality photo viewer, RBDS-enabled FM radio, and composite video output, the original Zune looked like a serious iPod challenger on paper. The 80GB Zune maintains all of the original Zune's compelling features and ups the ante with tightly integrated audio and video podcast support, as well as the unique ability to automatically sync content over a home wireless network.
Ever since Apple rolled podcast support into its iPod and iTunes products back in 2005, no one has been able to match its seamless integration of audio and video podcast discovery, subscription, and management tools (although Creative's Zencast alternative gets close). With the latest refresh of the Zune PC software, first- and second-generation Zune owners can now enjoy audio and video podcasts with the same ease as their iPod contemporaries. Podcasts now have their own directory within the main menu of the Zune, which is subdivided between audio and video podcasts. The Zune PC software also includes a new podcast tab that allows users to browse through a growing library of podcasts. If your favorite podcast can't be found in the directory, links are provided to both recommend the podcast for inclusion, as well as add the podcast manually by copying and pasting its URL into the Zune software. In the end, podcast downloads, autosync preferences, and subscription management match that of iTunes. In fact, Microsoft takes podcast integration a step further by allowing users to unsubscribe from podcasts directly on their Zune–a great feature for podcast junkies who want to tidy up their podcast subscriptions on the go. (Editors' note: Microsoft removed the podcast unsubscribe feature from the Zune's initial firmware release due to instability. Microsoft plans to reintroduce the feature in its next firmware update.) We were also happy to see that the Zune includes a playback resume option for digesting long podcasts in sections.
The second major addition to the Zune's set of features is the ability to wirelessly sync content from your PC over your home Wi-Fi network. The feature requires a one-time setup to familiarize the Zune with your home network, after which it will remember to look for the network automatically each time it is plugged in for a recharge. If you're within range of your wireless network but don't feel like recharging your player to trigger the wireless sync, you can also initiate the sync manually by digging through the Zune's settings. Of course, you can always connect the Zune directly to your computer using the included proprietary USB cable, but the wireless option is a neat trick.
The audio, video, photo, and radio features of the Zune are largely unchanged from the first generation–which isn't a bad thing, really. The Zune's music player supports MP3, WMA, protected-WMA (Zune Marketplace only), WMA Lossless, and AAC music file formats. The inclusion of the high-fidelity WMA Lossless music format on a high-capacity player like the 80GB Zune should make more than a few audio purists very pleased, and the continued support for AAC opens the door for iPod converts (although DRM-protected iTunes purchases are still unsupported).
The Zune supports WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 video formats natively at a DVD-quality 30fps frame rate. Windows Media Center users will be happy to know that the Zune also imports DVR-MS recorded video content. Although the Zune's screen displays at a 320×240 resolution, video files stored on the Zune can be as large as 720×480 and played at full resolution through the composite video output built into the Zune's headphone jack. An optional Zune AV dock can output video using a higher quality component cable. Unlike the iPod, the Zune's built-in video output mirrors its onscreen display, which means that all of the Zune's features (including menus) can display on your TV.
With its support of RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data System) station information, the Zune's FM radio is one of the best available on a handheld device. Depending on the broadcaster, the Zune's FM radio displays station call letters, genre, as well as the currently playing artist and song information. The Zune's radio is dependent on a connected pair of headphones to act as an antenna, however, so don't be surprised if the radio doesn't work while the Zune is connected to an AV dock. Users can switch between European, North American, and Japanese radio bands from the Zune's radio settings menu.
Aside from its wireless-sync capability, the Zune's most intriguing feature is its ability to share music and photos between users. With the latest version of the Zune PC software, the social aspect of recommending music and showing off your music interests can now reach beyond Zune users who are within range of your Wi-Fi antenna. Zune users are now encouraged to set up their Zune Card, giving them an online identity that reveals their listening habits and favorite songs to the world, and opens up the opportunity to discover and recommend new music through interaction with other Zune users. The new Zune Card online community may be a bit much for some people, but plans to integrate the Zune Card for use with larger social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace may provide an automatic way to update your friends on your musical tastes.
While the Zune is one of the more full-featured MP3 players on the market, there are some competitive features it lacks. If you're looking for a voice recorder, line-input recorder, or FM radio recorder, you'll need to look elsewhere. Without support for Audible audio books or audio file bookmarking, the Zune is probably not our first choice for book lovers. The most shocking feature not found in the latest crop of Zunes is an audio EQ control (see the Performance section below).
Performance
The Achilles' heel of the Zune is its built-in Wi-Fi antenna. As any laptop owner knows, a Wi-Fi antenna sucks a lot of juice and can wreck battery performance. To optimize the Zune's battery life in spite of its Wi-Fi capabilities, Microsoft decided to ditch the built-in audio equalizer found on the first-generation Zune. While one can argue that EQ presets are simply a Band-Aid for poor quality earbuds, there's just no way to feel good about having a perfectly good feature ripped away from a product. Luckily, Microsoft includes a pair of high-quality dynamic driver earphones with the 80GB Zune to maximize the perceived audio quality out of the box. Listening on our full-size Ultrasone HFI-700 headphones, we were more than satisfied with the Zune's fidelity (especially considering its support for WMA Lossless). That said, bass addicts, control freaks, and people with partial hearing loss will certainly be disappointed with the Zune's lack of sound enhancement.
Video performance on the 80GB Zune is quite good. The Zune's 3.2-inch screen is a monster, bested only by the iPod Touch and full-fledged PVPs. The glass-covered 320×240 LCD presents excellent viewing angles, with above-average clarity and color. With the recent addition of podcast support, the 80GB Zune is unquestionably the high-capacity choice for video podcast fans. Support for Windows Media Center DVR content is just icing on the cake.
Unfortunately, the 80 GB Zune's battery life is only average when held up to a high-capacity competitor such as the iPod Classic. With the Wi-Fi feature turned off, Microsoft rates the Zune's battery life at 30 hours for audio, and 4 hours for video. Our CNET Labs found that the Microsoft Zune 80 is realistically capable of 22 hours of audio-only playback with the Wi-Fi feature turned off, or 18.5 hours with the Wi-Fi feature enabled. Compared with the 45 hours of audio-only playback our lab was able to squeeze from Apple's 80GB iPod Classic, the Zune 80's lackluster battery performance is a notable disadvantage. In the context of the first-generation Zune's 13 hours of audio playback, however, the Zune 80's 22 hours is a relative step forward. Our CNET Labs testing concluded that the Zune 80's video playback battery performance nearly matches Microsoft's 4-hour claim. During testing, the Zune 80 managed 3.8 hours of video playback with Wi-Fi off, and 3.7 hours with Wi-Fi active.
Final thoughts
We can spend pages listing the Zune's features, but when it comes down to it, Microsoft's biggest achievement will be overcoming the Zune stigma still lingering from last year's debut. With its beautiful screen, podcast integration, revamped interface, and wireless sync, we believe the latest crop of Zunes should finally take hold as a true iPod alternative.
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We just received a sample from Thomson of this player, and boy are we impressed!
A sleek cold metal housing encapsulates a huge array of functions, of which touch screen, shake control, mini SD Slot, MP3 and MP2 playback, loudspeaker and FM Radio are just a few. The player comes well presented in a gift box with all the accessories you will need. As soon as you see it you will understand what we are talking about when we say an immaculate design and specification.
It also boasts MP2 format so you can listen to your digital radio recordings directly from your SD Card. This is a real market few manufacturers have ventured into. With DAB taking off over recent years there are only a few players which can play your digital recordings directly from an SD card. This is one of them, and we can guarantee, one of the best.
Rather surprisingly it includes a couple of rather obscure features such as a spirit level and a step counter, perfect for the musical carpenter or athlete!
Overall we are incredibly impressed with this product, while a little more expensive that your standard MP4 Video player it is well worth the money.
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There aren't many fields in the tech industry that you could argue are dominated by a particular make and model of hardware, but we believe the PMP (portable media player) market to be one of them. So impressive has Archos's range of players been over the last couple of years that it's difficult to see how someone else could compete.
A high-profile launch into this market would be a ballsy move then, but it's one that Cowon hasn't shied away from with the release of the iAudio Q5W. It's finished in black with a whopping 5-inch display and a nice range of connectivity that includes a full sized USB port - so you can transfer content from devices such as digital cameras or MP3 players - and a proprietary connection for A/V output through the supplied composite/component lead. The latter is a nice touch since it means you can hook the device up to your TV or audio system directly.
On starting it up for the first time we were impressed by the clarity and vibrancy of the 800 x 480 screen, which makes good use of the Cowon Launcher software to offer a nice degree of access and control over your media. This interface actually runs over Windows CE 5.0, which is a bit disappointing considering how long version 6.0 has been around for.
Your media options include video, music, an FM radio and flash player, though you'll also find a photo and text viewer. The range of customisation and control options for playing back all forms of media is excellent: you can adjust everything from the aspect ratio, subtitle size and speed at which a video file plays back, to custom equalizers using the iAudio JetEffect settings and full slideshow control for photos.
When you hook the thing up to an external device such as a TV, you can use the supplied remote control to access the Q5W from a distance. We found it to be quite unresponsive though, with a rather bizarre key layout that involves repeated trial and error to get the Q5W to behave as you'd like. While playback quality is pretty good, the rather complex menu structure doesn't make for friendly operation, at least not with a remote that's as poorly conceived as this. The next release will no doubt correct this.
There's wireless built in, which is fairly easy to set up if you know what you're doing, along with Bluetooth so you can pair with compatible devices such as headphones or external speakers.
Despite an impressive feature set that, at least on paper, might send a chill down the spines of rivals, it doesn't all come together as well as you'd think. From a multimedia point of view everything works nicely, in large part due to the excellent display, but building a front-end on top of an accessible operating system does make things seem a tad clinical.
Specifically, we noticed that application switching was rather sluggish, it's very difficult to operate the device cleanly with your fingers - though there is a built-in stylus to help - and perhaps most damning of all it's very expensive. On the upside the iAudio Q5W is extremely customisable, there's a fantastic degree of media control and excellent format support, making the final verdict a rather difficult one to call.
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f you're going to carry a media player, how best to keep your pocket from being picked? Strap it to your wrist, of course, which is exactly what you do with the Video Watch. This device does video, music, photos, text, voice recordings and, in its spare time, shows the time in analogue and digital formats.
All these functions have been available for a while in pocket players, of course, but this is one of the first designs to mount the player on your wrist and not make an unsightly bulge in your shirt/blouse cuff. It's actually not much bulkier than a typical Casio G-Shock (rugged man's watch) and is a lot more useful, if you don't need to know your blood pressure or mean height above sea level.
The Video Watch has a bright, 128 x 128-pixel OLED colour display, which is a lot better than LCD at showing videos in outdoor light and has no problem with fast frame updates. The menu system is controlled via three buttons down each vertical side of the watch and is pretty easy to familiarise yourself with. When held down, one of the buttons goes straight to time display; a useful shortcut.
You should be able to watch four hours of video or listen to eight hours of audio playback from a single battery charge, and you can charge up via the supplied USB cable or with the mains power supply, also in the box. The USB link is used for data transfer too, of course, and once you've connected the watch, Windows XP and Vista see it as an ordinary external drive. Drag and drop files in appropriate formats into the sensibly-named folders on the watch and away you go.
By appropriate formats, we mean MP3, WMA and MP4 for audio and the proprietary SigmaTel Motion Video (SMV) format for video, which has the advantage of offering an hour's playback in just 200MB of the watch's 2GB of memory. You may not have come across SMV format before, but a converter is supplied so you can transfer video from the more common AVI, MPEG and WMV formats.
We are generally very impressed by the Video Watch, but do wonder just how robust its plastic case and display screen will be when strapped to your wrist. We'd like to see a version with a metal case and strap and, ideally, a mineral glass face.