Apple iPod nano (3rd gen, video) review

Average user rating

9.0

spectacular

Average user rating from 2 users

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Apple iPod nano (3rd gen, video) user reviews

June 22, 2008

Posted by: lovejoy23uk

"Entirely delightful"

What I like:

Best MP3 player I've owned by miles

What I don't like:

Too easy to leave in a pocket and put in the wash

Review:

Once again, CNETs reviews just don't ring true with me. I've disliked iPods for one of the reasons you've criticised this one, i.e. they just haven't sounded any good. But the 3rd gen nano is a different story. Gone is that boring lifeless sound thats completely lacking in dynamics and we now have something that really does convey instruments, timing and the communication that the musicians intended. It's had me listening to more music than anything I've played MP3s with before.
I have done a blind comparison between the other MP3 players you mention and the nano beats all of them. The Creative Zen V Plus is not a very good sounding player and goes into distortion once you get the volume beyond 20, it's brash and spitty treble is a put off after about 20 minutes of listening. The iAudio machines on the other hand are excellent and I have used one of these for the last few years as they have been the best sounding players up until now. The 3rd gen nano has all of the qualities of the iAudio but the iAudio by comparison has a slightly metallic sounding edge to instruments. The nano is just that bit more natural sounding.
What does sadden me is that this excellent new sound quality level that Apple have found for the nano has not been carried over to the iPod Touch. The Touch loses a lot of the subtleties and detail that the nano conveys and sounds mushy by comparison, although even the Touch is still a big improvement over anything going backwards from a 3rd gen iPod.