Cover Flow Navigation
Cover Flow is best when you're trolling for albums: Slide your finger around the scroll wheel, and you'll visually flip through albums, organized alphabetically by artist. If you're looking for an individual song, it will be filed under its top-level album name--which could make it hard to find.
One gripe: In the Cover Flow view, once you select a song within an album, you can't go back to the list of songs in that album. If you use the menu button to back up from the song that's currently playing, it takes you to the top-level cover art view in Cover Flow, not to the intermediary album track list view that you initially selected your track from. Also, you'd better hope that iTunes found cover art for the vast majority of your music, otherwise you'll be left with unsightly filler images in Cover Flow.
The regular menus have had some slight browsing enhancements as well. For example, if you're browsing by title, the track title is bolded, with the artist name beneath it (five tracks fit on the screen at once). In Album view, it's the album that's bolded, with the artist name beneath; plus, you get a tiny thumbnail of the album at left to enhance browsability (four albums fit on screen at once). If your Nano is packed with music, you can scroll fast using the scroll wheel, and a letter cue will pop up on screen as you scroll, to help you know when to stop.
iPod Accessories
The Nano's included Apple earbud headphones are better than what its competitors typically bundle; and audio sounded pleasing using the earbuds. We'll have more details on the Nano's audio quality--and a full rating--when we have the results of the PC World Test Center's signal-to-noise ratio tests.
Not surprisingly, given Apple's consistent approach to all of its music players, the Nano continues to lack features that are common on competing flash media players, including a built-in microphone for voice recordings and an FM tuner. To make recordings, you'll need an optional accessory that provides a line-in jack. The optional $49 iPod Radio Remote adds FM capability.
Like its predecessor, the Nano's headphone jack is on the bottom of the unit, next to the standard iPod dock connector. This means the device is best placed in your pocket upside-down, to avoid putting strain on the headphone connector.
The Nano includes a USB cable to charge the player via your computer. Apple rates the Nano's battery life at 24 hours for audio (up from 14 for the previous generation), and 5 hours for video.
What the Nano lacks in a few features and flexibility, though, it makes up for with its stylish flair. With the Nano, Apple delivers a highly capable, eye-catching media player, including great audio quality and a bright, high-resolution display for watching video.
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