Which new iPod is the one for me?

Round-up by: Chris Stevens

Last updated: 13 Oct 2006

Don't worry, just because you've decided you want an iPod it doesn't mean that you have no soul. Stalin made everyone wear grey woollen clothes and queue for bread, but there was still plenty of creative thought in Russia in the 1950s. Don't let people tell you that wearing white headphones and Click Wheeling through tracks like a zombie means you are a zombie. Real zombies don't even like music -- yeah, we know what you're thinking, but the ones in the Thriller video were fictional.

So, you've decided you must have an iPod. Your options are thankfully straightforward -- Apple has anticipated the average consumer's aversion to obscure letters and numbers and simply calls its ranges the iPod, the iPod nano and the iPod Shuffle. The names remain unchanged with each new generation. Although this makes it infinitely easier to communicate what you want to the pimply youth in Dixons, it does make it hard to differentiate between current and previous generations when writing about them.

The new iPod and the new iPod nano are far better than their previous iterations (although owing to some bizarre quirk of the scoring system we appear to have given the new nano a lower score -- that's market progress for you). The iPod has increased capacity and a brighter screen, as well as a load of interface improvements, and the nano is a completely new and more scratch-resistant design, and available in five different colours. They remain the most desirable players on the market, as well as the most ubiquitous. Go get em, zombies!