The audio quality of the nano is excellent. Although, like all other iPods, it comes with the standard Apple earbuds. As shown in Figure 7, these earbuds have round hard ends that are supposed to fit into the ear. Since the ear canals of most humans are not perfectly round, most people find these earbuds ill-fitting and uncomfortable. Apple makes softer, more comfortable ear buds, a picture of these is shown in Figure 8. In our opinion, Apple should include something like this in their iPod packages. But since they currently don’t do that, be sure to leave enough room in your budget to purchase a decent pair of earbuds or headphones.

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Figure 7: Apple’s standard earbuds are included.

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Figure 8: Apple’s softer earbuds are an added cost.

The battery life of this nano is excellent. Our tests got close to the Apple posted times of 24 hours for audio and 5 hours for video playback. Unfortunately, like all other iPods, the lithium ion battery is built-into the device and is not user-replaceable.

Like other iPods, this new nano fully supports podcasts and audio books. It also includes the ability to store and display pictures. It also has extras such as a clock, calendar, alarm, stopwatch, and is also able to hold contacts and notes. You can even hook it up to a television to show pictures and video.