As many people know by now due to the flood of advertising on TV for the iPod nano, it’s out like a ton of bricks.

Before seeing the announcement I had no clue Apple was even planning a new iPod at all. But I ordered mine within hours of seeing it existed. I just couldn’t help myself, it was too slick.

I wrote a previous review on the 6GB iPod Mini. This unit is essentially the successor to the Mini – so much so that as this unit appeared on Apple’s site, pretty much any reference to the Mini disappeared from the store. It was as if the Mini never existed. If Apple were politicians, I’d be afraid of them.

Back to the nano. I currently have a 20GB 4th generation iPod, The one with the monochrome screen. I got it three months ago because I dropped my 6GB mini on the ground so many times that I decided to sell it on eBay. Poor sap who bought it knew it was scuffed, too. One of my complaints about the Mini was the slow drive and the easily dented soft aluminum case, which was much more scratch-resistant than any other iPod model, but also dented much easier.

The nano is back to Apple’s glossy plastic look again, complete with the fingerprint-magnet metal backing. I kind of wished they would have used the materials from the Mini to make this unit instead, but other than that it is quite pretty.

The nano includes the capabilities (for the most part) of the “Photo” series of iPods (other than the video out to a TV feature). It’s screen is smaller, but it is still very readable.

Transfer uses USB 2.0, Apple for some reason decided to drop support for Firewire on this unit, possibly because they couldn’t fit the circuitry that firewire requires in such a small package. This is a minor complaint for me, but I can see why people would be mad about this.

Transfer speed is extremely quick, easily as quick as most USB 2.0 memory key drives. It copies songs faster than the Mini by quite a bit, and is faster than the hard drive based iPods as well.

The nano uses solid state flash memory (2GB or 4GB of it), which makes skipping or drive damage due to shock a thing of the past. I never had any of my old iPods skip while i was biking and I always take care of them, so this is just an added cushion.

Battery life seems on par or more with the Mini. Apple claims 14 hours and I have yet to test this fully. I have no reason to doubt this claim based on previous players and the fact that this unit has no moving parts. I don’t use my iPod to the point where the battery is dead very often so this is of little concern to me.

The weight of the unit is nearly nonexistent. I could not tell this thing was in my pocket while I had it on me. That is definitely it’s greatest asset (along with it’s size). It’s about the thickness of 6 credit cards and is not much larger in area than a credit card.

Sound quality is on par with other iPods, I have noticed no difference between this and the many others I’ve used. One downside is the headphone port is located on the bottom of the unit instead of the top, which as of yet has not bothered me. Perhaps this is because I mostly use my iPod in my car through an auxiliary-in jack to the car stereo instead of with headphones.

My opinions on music players change as much as the tides these days, but right now this is definitely the best MP3 player in existence. I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it. Unless you have to have your entire music collection on you at all times (I have 70GB of music but only listen to a few gigs of it at once), I can’t recommend any music player any more than this one.

In Summary:

Pros: Amazingly slim and light, fast transfer speed, SHINY! PRETTY! I also don’t need to like U2 to get a Black iPod now either (thank god).

Cons: No Firewire connection, Bottom-mount headphone port, 4GB max memory, Kind of pricy for a 4GB player. No video out (who watches photos on a TV anyway?)

Final Verdict: Despite the small flaws… Get one. Right now.