Apple iPod nano takes a beating and keeps on beating

20 Comments

The out-of-box experience was nothing less than expected from Apple: excessive, high-end, and oh-so-delightful. When purchasing our 2GB black iPod nano for this review, it even came in a ‘commemorative’ iPod nano bag. Opening the slim nano box was pretty much the same as opening any other iPod, and the contents were laid out in a similar manner—simple, elegant, and organized. It’s when you take the iPod nano out of the box that the true experience begins. That thing is really, really nano! Photos don’t even convey how small and light the iPod nano really is. In fact at first, at 3.5″ x 1.6″ x 0.27″ and 1.5 ounces, it almost seemed too small and too light for me in my hand. The thinness is marvelous from an aesthetic and engineering standpoint, but my first thought upon holding it was don’t break it. We’ll get to exploring that thought later, though,” Jacqui Cheng and Clint Ecker write for Ars Technica.

“What does it take to destroy an iPod nano, and what’s inside this tiny package? We wanted to answer both questions and strangely enough answering the first allowed us to answer the second. We could take our turns at purposely rendering the iPod nano broken, and then when it had endured more damage than it could handle we’d end its misery with a respectful autopsy,” Cheng and Ecker write. “To break the nano in the most scientific manner possible, we would need 5 or 6 nanos and a high-tech laboratory built for this purpose. Unfortunately, all we had was a single 2GB black iPod nano and a giant parking lot, so we had to make do. What we get is a great idea of how much abuse this little guy can take.”

Ars Technica goes so far as to run over an iPod nano with a car (twice) and throw it 40 feet into the air to land on pavement in their full review, complete with photos and autopsy, here.

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20 Comments

  3. Nice. Quite the testament:

    “At this point we were astounded that the iPod nano was still working properly, albeit with a broken display. Because we had honestly expected the iPod nano to break by this time, we were forced to depart from our planned schedule of destruction and try and run over it with the car. Surely, we thought, it could never withstand the crushing power of German automotive engineering…

    What were we to do now? Baffled, we did the only thing we could think of at the time: we ran over the nano again! This time the screen went totally blank, but the band played on.”

    Reply

  8. I can imagine hundreds of nanopods on a store display Christmas tree (are they allowed anymore in the USA?). With their colored sceens showing family portraits or Christmas scenes. The problem would be recharging them every night.

    Reply

  9. ARS Technica says the Nano isn’t compatable with the dock. Features says the following:Accessory-compatible Dock connector. That to me says it is compatable with the dock and uses the included dock connector adapter to make it work. Other than that I would definately give it really high marks for durability.

    Reply

  11. All this “compatible” with the dock talk is retarded.

    The nano works with any dock out there– apple, third-party speakers, FM transmitters like iCarPlay, etc. All that you don’t get is the tight plastic piece to make the insertion idiot proof.

    I’ve had no problems inserting my nano.

    Reply

  16. The results of this “experiment” are confounded. That is, we can’t tell whether the iPod nano’s eventual total malfunction was the result of an accumulation of insults with the 40′ toss being the “final straw”, or was it the 40′ drop alone that caused it to quiit. How about carrying out each experiment on a new, pristine iPod nano? Only then will we know which single injury can make it malfunction.

    Reply

  18. What a stupid article. Anything can be destroyed if one tries hard enough.

    “Maybe to a Zen or DJ or something, though.”

    Have the Zen or DJ play the audio of Ballmer’s “Developers! Developers!”. There’d be no “maybe”. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />

    MW: waste, as in what a waste of time and money on a pointless test.

    Reply

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