There's also the issue of size I guess. The new nano isn't much thinner (and it's taller), but it's noticeably lighter; I could feel the difference handling them both at the store. so if you wanna go for the lightest thing all around, that might be a consideration I suppose
As for getting another brand like 4DThinker said (I read your blog post btw, it was very interesting, it helped tidy up some of my own thoughts on the matter
) I guess that might not be such an interesting option to someone running mac. I mean I already use itunes to listen to my music on the computer, so it won't bother me to use it to load up the player; so the second reason is kinda out with mac users maybe?
Then, no radio isn't bothersome to me at least--I used to be a big fan of the radio, but in the last few years it's become a disgrace at least where I am, every station full of incessant stupid ads, silly talk often over the songs, and the same playlist of a few dozen songs over and over again. If I never even tune in at home anymore, what are the odds that I will when I'm on the street? after all, if I need it to keep up with the world, I can get the headphones with the radio remote on them, for the rare occasions where I want that extra. I mean, when portable tape players or cd players were the standard for personal music listening, most of them DIDN'T have built-in radio, especially the stuff by better brands.
Same for colors--there's enough to choose from, and I thought maybe Apple did that because they couldn't otherwise change them enough to make a big difference from previous gens, but I don't mind; I'm not gonna say it's a company's fault if they have lots of colors just 'cause I'm too indecisive to make a choice lol. 'sides, I found it pretty easy to pick one: I definitely like the green more than all the others. Sure, I like all colors but I only need one, so I'm set. I'll enjoy the others by gawking at them every time I stop by the electronics store
Non-expandable memory. Okay, that might have been an issue for a bit, but then two things occurred to me:
1) the memory, probably under the form of a little card, would have to go somewhere--ie, there would need to be a slot for a card etc. This would a) compromise the compactness of the nano (where would they stick it? not much space, especially this year with the bezeled edges) b) provide yet another place for paperclips and bits of dust and debris to enter the ipod even if it has one of those rubber port covers (they have managed to keep open parts to the minimum with just the dock and headphone port, with the latter not being as much of an issue as it's normally kept covered by your earphones which I believe goes a long way to help making such a small device so sturdy) and c) it would look seriously tacky. Which is an issue when you see the thing maybe 20 times a day like I do. The way I know it would look tacky is that every single portable device I have seen it on, even many with an overall sound design in terms of looks, looks tacky on that part. And while apple are generally famous for makign beautiful things where other manufacturers have used the same technology and come up with something fugly, I think a memory expansion slot would be a challenge even to Apple's designers
2) Is this capability really needed? Basically, no. I think one needs to make a decision; if it is likely you will need to expand your memory in the 3 or so years you're going to keep this thing, then maybe you're buying the wrong size in the first place, and you really need an ipod touch (32gb, 64gb) or even go up to the classic, which currently has more storage than the hard drive on my macbook; I'm a music geek, coming from a family of such, and I'm willing to bet that if I put all our music together (yards of shelved records and cds), it still wouldn't quite fill 120gb.
Okay long post I know lol. It's just that I'm actually kind of trying to figure out the same thing as RainMeister (in my case though, I did quite like the form factor of the 3gen nano), so I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row, hence the long post. I guess I'm kinda thinking aloud or rather in writing , but I thought I'd hit 'submit reply all the same as it might be of some use to someone else (hey you never know!)
