Mossberg: Apple iPod nano ‘beautiful, incredibly thin, and exceeds Apple’s performance specs’
Thursday, September 08, 2005 - 08:10 AM ESTApple's iPod nano "was publicly revealed yesterday at a razzle-dazzle marketing event orchestrated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. But I have been testing a nano for the past few days, and I am smitten. It's not only beautiful and incredibly thin, but I found it exceeds Apple's performance claims," Walter S. Mossberg reports for The Wall Street Journal.
"In fact, the nano has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested -- including the iconic original white iPod. And it sounds great. I plan to buy one for myself this weekend, when it is due to reach stores in the U.S., Europe and Asia," Mossberg reports. "Available in classic iPod white, or a lustrous black (my favorite), the nano is not only small, it's stunningly skinny -- about the thickness of five credit cards stacked on top of one another. That means it can be carried easily in even the snuggest of clothing and the smallest of purses, and worn comfortably during exercise."
"The company says this slip of a player somehow packs in a large enough battery to play continuously for 14 hours," Mossberg writes. "In my tests, I found that the nano's battery lasted a bit longer than Apple claims -- 14 hours and 18 minutes. And I was easily able to pack around 1,200 songs, plus a couple dozen photos, into the $249 model, because most older pop and rock tunes tend to be shorter than the notional song Apple uses to calculate capacity."
"There are dozens of small, flash-based music players, but I haven't seen any that combine the nano's size and features. These features include the relatively large, 1.5 inch high-resolution color screen; Apple's famous iPod navigation wheel; and the standard iPod connector port, which links to numerous iPod accessories. Most flash players have tiny screens that are hard to read, lousy navigation and few or no accessories," Mossberg write. "All I can say is: It sure is small and it sure is cool."
Full article here.
About Walt Mossberg: Newsweek magazine calls Mr. Mossberg "the most powerful arbiter of consumer tastes in the computer world today." Time magazine calls him "the most influential computer journalist." And Rolling Stone calls him "the most powerful columnist in technology." The Washington Post declared Mr. Mossberg "one of the most powerful men in the high-tech world" and "a one-man media empire whose prose can launch a new product." And the New York Times calls him a "protean critic of the new economy's tools and toys." Mr. Mossberg was awarded the 1999 Loeb award for Commentary, the only technology writer to be so honored. For seven years in a row, 1995-2001, he was named as the most influential journalist writing about computers, in the annual ranking published by Technology Marketing magazine.
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"It sure is small, and it sure is cool." - Hahah, oh yeah...
I was just really sad yesterday, that after the cingular phone debut Jobs didn't get up and say "Well, thanks for coming to our presentation, I hope you enjoyed it-- oh wait, there is one more thing..."
But oh well