Cheapest way to get an iPod Nano

Marty_J

NickMidgley wrote: »

Hmmmm.... next year's iPod Nano, let me guess; it will play music (preferably in Apple's proprietary format)

The only proprietary format the iPod plays is Apple Lossless (I guess you could include protected-AAC files if you wanted to get technical).

and play videos on an undersized screen.

Could the screen on a Nano be bigger?

That fact the Nano is small is one of its selling points to many people (including myself).

isofa

NickMidgley wrote: »

Hmmmm.... next year's iPod Nano, let me guess; it will play music (preferably in Apple's proprietary format) and play videos on an undersized screen.

Formats such as MP3, as supported by all Apple iPods?!

My only gripe with the iPod is the awful headphones, as a music device nothing comes close, IMO and experience. I've had various brands including Sony's, but since I purchased a Nano I've never looked back, we have several different models in the family now, and everyone loves them.

I'm quite happy to pay a premium for a better product. As I would with all sorts of items from cars to computers.

You'll find some resellers offering small deals with them, Apple themselves discount them sometimes from their store, there is a refurb available at Apple's website, and when new models are released, many resellers off-load the older models cheaply.

There are hundreds of companies that sell them from Mac specialists like MacWarehouse and Cancom through to John Lewis.

Marty_J

isofa wrote: »

My only gripe with the iPod is the awful headphones

I agree 100%. They're truly awful.

If you're buying an iPod and you want to get the best out of it, you should really budget for some decent Sennheiser earphones at the very least.

foxinsocks_2

My tip would be to buy a refurbished one. I recently picked one up from an ebay seller who offers a one year guarantee for it. I just bought a 2gb one for just over £40. It came in an ipod box with all the manuals, stickers, chargers and headphones etc. There wasn't a mark on it and the whole thing (apart from the box) looked as new.

The seller was clearancebargains-uk

I'd bought a Creative Zen mp3 player (to replace an iPod I'd killed) and it was brilliant apart from the fact that I couldn't play half the music I'd downloaded from iTunes on it as it's copy protected. Yes, you can faff about burning it on to a CD and then ripping it but honestly... I couldn't be bothered and bought another iPod from clearance bargains and it's brilliant.

Sput2001

My only gripe with the iPod is the awful headphones, as a music device nothing comes close, IMO and experience. I've had various brands including Sony's, but since I purchased a Nano I've never looked back, we have several different models in the family now, and everyone loves them.

Every iRiver I've heard beats every iPod I've heard, sonically, and they usually come with Sennheiser headphones as standard. File transfer is a simple drag & drop exercise, rather than having to faff about with the highly cumbersome (imho) iTunes. They usually have built in FM tuners and voice recorders, too.

I really would give them a listen...

Marty_J

NickMidgley wrote: »

Every iRiver I've heard beats every iPod I've heard, sonically, and they usually come with Sennheiser headphones as standard.

A bit of a broad statement, especially if you're not comparing the same file with the same headphones back-to-back, but OK.

Just to help the OP out, which one of iRiver's seemingly endless parade of mp3 players would you recommend?

Do they have a "Nano killer"?

File transfer is a simple drag & drop exercise, rather than having to faff about with the highly cumbersome (imho) iTunes.

You mean you get to use an application not designed for organising digital media for the purpose of organising your digital media?

Lucky you.

They usually have built in FM tuners and voice recorders, too.

The new Nanos have a voice recorder, but you'll need to use special earphones with a microphone and remote built into them (£££s). Pretty lame.

isofa

I think iTunes is superb, never had an issue with it (and for the record I'm a Mac, PC and Linux user).

Domokun

Two words. Removable. Battery.

As in: The iPod doesn't have one, and this day and age it SHOULD be the first thing to die in a device. Back when the iPod was a baby the estimated battery life was estimated at ~18 months of average use. I'd be very interested in more recent data if anyone has some insight.

Marty_J

Good general iPod battery info here:

http://www.ipodbatteryfaq.com/

and more specific info as to how long they last on the same page here:

http://www.ipodbatteryfaq.com/#5

If it lasts for 300 - 500 charge cycles, then if you charge it twice a week, it should last for 3 - 5 years. In about 6 months, my 5th gen iPod will be about 3 years old, and it's still working great.

isofa

I've had one of my Nano's since Dec 2005, and it's still fine, holding a decent charge. Probably gets charged once a week, sometimes less frequently.

I agree it'd be nice if they had removable batteries, but it's never been an issue with me, and if it does eventually fail, I'll get it replaced at FixMyIPod at a nominal fee, or the technology will have moved on far enough for me to consider a newer device.

I've never replaced a battery in a phone and we have 4 Sony Ericsson's, one at least 4 years old, still holding an excellent charge.

Mind you, I have a 8 year old Mac PowerBook which still holds a full charge and lasts for 2-3 hours in use, and can run virtually the latest Mac OS X