It has been over a month since Apple launched the third generation iPod and it’s probably a bit late for a review, but we’re publishing ours anyways. Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, first unveiled the original iPod Nano about two years ago by sliding it out of his famous pair of blue jeans. A year later (2006) Jobs announced the 2nd generation aluminum-encased iPod Mini looking version. And last month Apple announced the 3rd generation Nano which has an entire newly designed body and for the first time, can play videos. At first I wondered why anyone would want to bother watching videos on such a small screen. After a few weeks with the iPod Nano, the reason became clear. I actually found myself watching some video podcasts and unwatched TV shows when I was on the go. It was pretty nice to be able to carry around video content in such a small device. Also if you were like me and felt the device look pretty fat and ugly, that all changes once you actually hold a 3rd generation iPod Nano. It is thinner and smaller than you would have imagined. I would have to say this iPod was a very needed and an impressive upgrade, it can not be considered Apple’s best work. (They’ve done better before.)

Apple iPod Nano (3G) Specs:

• Type: Portable Flash-Based Video Player
• Capacities: 4GB and 8GB
• Screen: 2-inches 320×240 pixel LCD
• Music Formats: AAC, MP3, & WAV
• Video Formats: H.264 and MP4
• Special Functions: Video Output
• Colors: Silver, Blue, Red, Green & Black
• Connection: USB to Dock Connector
• Price Range: $149 to $199

The Body: – 4/5
To describe the iPod Nano right off the bat, it’s pretty much a tiny version of a iPod Classic. The unit looks elegant and impressive because of its size. The Nano stands just 2.75-inches tall, 2.06-inches wide, and only .26-inches thick. It is the same thickness as the 2nd generation Nano. The front is made of a anodized aluminum and the back, unlike its predecessor, has the classic shinny steel material, which is easy to scratch. Because of the dimensions and the material, the 3G Nano unfortunately seems to be a whole lot more delicate than the 2nd generation. The standard touch sensitive click wheel can be found right below the screen, but it is abnormally skinnier and smaller. The wheel was a bit more difficult to use compared to the older Nano, however wasn’t really a problem after a few minutes of use. Apple has managed to move the hold button, the headphone jack, and the dock connector to the bottom, leaving nothing behind at the top. The rest of the controls such as volume and brightness are all managed through the interface using the click-wheel.

The Screen: – 5/5
The 2-inch (diagonal) LED backlit LCD was bright, clear, and sharp enough to watch videos on. It once again is the brightest iPod Nano screen yet. The resolution is a standard 320×240 which plays at a max of 30 frames per second. One thing that makes the screen look different is the gap found between the body and display which creates a different effect. The Nano can playback both 4:3 and 16:9 clips by formating and resizing the video to best fit the display.

Battery Life: – 4/5
As always, Apple has managed to vastly improve the iPod’s playback time. According to Apple, the battery can offer 24 hours of audio playback or 5 hours of video playback. From our test, with the brightness slightly lowered and at a normal listening volume, we surprisingly found it to last much longer than advertised. Although this is better than any previous iPod, it still remains on below what’s offered by other flash-based portable multimedia players from Creative, Sony, and Microsoft.

Media Formats: – 5/5
In general, just about any major format of audio will work with the iPod Nano. The iPod can playback AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, WAV, and music purchased from iTunes. The Nano also supports playback of DRM-Free files from Amazon’s new MP3 Store and obviously iTunes Plus. For video the 3rd generation Nano supports MOV, MP4, or M4V files encoded in MPEG-4 or H.264. Apple iTunes does a fairly good job of converting most content into a compatible format. And for photos, the feature I personally rarely use, it can read and display JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, and PNG images.

Interface: – 3/5
The new interface is one of those things you love, but hate. The Nano now has a new default split screen view which displays the standard menus on the left, while displaying moving album artwork thumbnails on the right. Although this looks beautiful, we felt is slowed down browsing through the library by a lot. The Nano now can do neat things such as displaying Artwork next to each album or adding an extra line of information below each song, which saves having to return to the previous menu to find out what it was a part of. Although I’m not a big fan of Cover Flow, Apple was impressively able to get it to run on the Nano fairly well. It remains a bit sluggish, but it’s pretty good for such a small device. (Even my laptop struggles to run it on iTunes) The reason we took away two points was because the interface was horribly buggy. We often found that the menu would display the wrong number of songs or albums. We also entered menu’s that didn’t or shouldn’t exist. For example we entered a weird menu by clicking on the play button over a podcast folder instead of hitting the center button. Overall it’s a major UI overhaul, which is great, but honestly such a major mainstream product shouldn’t have any problems. Hopefully Apple will roll out a firmware upgrade fixing these issues. Another which annoyed me was that all the settings were no longer in the same place. For example some settings for Video could only be modified from the Video menu, not form the Settings Menu. Hopefully they’ll keep everything in one place, it will be a headache to have to visit a different menus to each type of setting.

Syncing Media: 4.5/5
Our experience with syncing media was just as we expected it to be, excellent. The only thing I wish the iPod Nano could do is to allow dropping files right onto the device without the need of iTunes. If you were to do so with a current iPod, the file would just be stored on the device and would never appear anywhere in the interface. But if you are using the latest version iTunes, everything works great. Managing songs, videos, and photos is a cinch. You can manually manage content or ask iTunes to take care of it for you. The iPod Nano even doubles as a flash drive unlike the iPod Touch.

In The Box: – 4/5
When you open your neatly and fancily packaged box from Apple you’ll find a set of standard iPod earphones, a USB 2.0 cable, a Dock adapter, and a quick start guide. As always, we recommend upgrading your generic headphones to something along the lines of Shure’s SE110 which will offer a very different experience. Finally no software is included, therefore an internet connection is required to acquire the latest version if Apple iTunes.

So in conclusion, we weren’t too impressed with the iPod Nano, but it is a great upgrade on some levels compared to its predecessor. We would recommend upgrading if you want the ability to playback video, which worked very well. If you plan just to listen to music, there’s not too much else this device can offer. We in fact on some levels would recommend this over the iPod Touch for those on a strict budget. The 8GB Nano costs half that of the 8GB iPod Touch. As for the software bugs, it is only expected and natural for Apple to roll out some patches soon. The only other major problem we found was that it seems to be way more delicate than the 2G Nano. (Buy a case!) Anyways if you wish to purchase this, it’s now available in retail stores and online for $150 and $200 for 4GB and 8GB models, respectively. You should be able to find it for a bit cheaper from other retailers. We recommend this because it is one of the most affordable iPods yet and retains just about all the features that the iPod Classic has.

Buy Now: iPod Nano 4GB – $149 | iPod Nano 8GB – $199
Links: Apple iPod Nano | Apple Store

There have been a slew of online Web 2.0 applications introduced over the course of the year boasting to be desktop replacements, but to be honest, I’ve haven’t really been all too impressed with most of them. Sure, there are a few good ones, like for instance, Google’s online office suite, Google Docs. For the most part there hasn’t been too much to get excited over. Until now that is!

One application that has finally convinced me that there might very well be a true market and future for Web 2.0 online applications is Picnik. It’s a powerful, yet simple, online photo editor, based off of a clever combination of AJAX programming techniques and some pretty advanced Flash. Although this is no replacement for powerful tools such as Adobe Photoshop, it is an amazing tool for average web users. With its Full Screen mode, your computer literally is taken over (in a good way) by Picnik offering more space to work with. All the standard manipulation tools are present including: auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, exposure, color correction, sharpen, and red-eye correction.

Not only does it allow users to upload and edit photos in near real time, but the developers have also done their best to seamlessly integrated Picnik into a wide variety of social networking sites, including: Facebook, Tumblr, Photobucket and Flickr. On top of that it also allows users to easily send their finished images off to a variety of printing services through Walmart, Costco, and a bunch more.

At the moment, this is by far one of the best photo editors we’ve seen, but that might change when Adobe launches their online version of Photoshop. As for now, if you’d like to read a more in-depth review check out Tech-Talkers.com or just start editing by visiting Picnik.com.

Link: Picnik – Edit Photos The Easy Way
Full Review: Tech-Talkers.com

Skatter Tech recently got a hold of Sony’s NWZ-S610 Video Walkman to review and we have been messing around with it for a few days. We’ve got to say that Sony should be proud since they have finally taken a big step by launching Video Walkmans which are also “open format.” (Means support for most DRM-Free music formats.) If they keep up the pace, this could help them regain their market share in the portable media sector. Getting back to the review, since this was Sony’s first Walkman in the U.S. that can playback video and the first to be “open format,” we weren’t expecting too much. As we got more into the player’s features and capabilities, we were surprisingly impressed with what Sony has turned out. Just to heat things up, we’ll even go as far to say that we’d recommend this over Apple’s new iPod Nano!

Sony NWZ-S Walkman Specs:

• Type: Portable Flash Video Player
• Capacities: 2GB, 4GB, & 8GB
• Screen: 1.8-inch 320 x 240 LCD
• Music Format: AAC, MP3 & WMA
• Video Format: MP4 Only
• Special: FM Tuner w/ Presets
• Colors: Silver, Black, Pink & Red
• Connection Type: USB 2.0
• Price Range: $99-$179

The Body: – 3.5/5
The S610’s body is simple and elegant, but not eye-catching. The unit is quite durable and wouldn’t be easy to break. The Walkman is just 3.25 inches tall, 1.7 inches wide, and .45 inches thick, making way sleeker, but thicker and taller than the new iPod Nano. On the front you’ll find the display followed by the navigation controls right below. At first we assumed the four-way commands were touch sensitive, but it ended up that all the controls on the unit are actually hard keys. The ‘back’ and ‘option’ buttons, which are awkwardly placed at the top left and top right, are used to return to the previous menu and bring up an options menu. We felt both these buttons should have been placed elsewhere, but it wasn’t a problem after some getting used to. The ‘play’ button in the center acts as the enter key. I actually prefer hard keys since it is easier to navigate the player without having to be looking at it. The hold key can be found on the left side and the volume controls are on the right. Other than that the stereo headphone jack can be found on the top of the unit while the data port for syncing and a reset pinhole are on the bottom.

The Screen: – 5/5
The 1.8-inch display, just .2 inches smaller than the Nano, is surprisingly bright and sharp enough to watch videos on. The resolution is a standard 320 x 240 and plays at 30FPS. We didn’t notice any lag or audio/video sync issues and the screen didn’t go dark when viewed at from angles as it does on many portable players. Instead of making the S610 “fat” like the new Nano, to retain the form factor the screen has instead been placed on the unit vertically. This of course means to utilize the entire display, the unit must be held sideways when watching videos. To make the unit friendly to left and right handed owners, the video and photo orientation can be set in the options to rotate to the preferred side.

Battery Life: – 5/5
Sony’s always been on top of things when it comes to battery life. My 3-year-old thumbdrive sized Walkman often lasts up to 50 hours. In the case of the S610, it supposedly lasts up to 33 hours for music playback and an amazing 9.5 hours for video playback. This of course depends on many factors including volume level, screen brightness, file sizes, and plenty more. Either way that’s quite good considering that the new iPod Nano is limited to approximately 24 hours of audio and 5 hours of video.

Media Formats: – 5/5
As we mentioned in the intro, Sony has finally gone “open format” with this Walkman and two others. They have dumped Sonic Stage, the Connect music store, and even the ATRAC format. For music, the S610 now supports MP3, AAC, WMA, and WAV all of which have to be free of DRM. The player is also compatible with Napster’s Subscription Based service and iTunes Plus tracks. As for video, the S610 will playback MP4 formats encoded in H.264/AVC and AAC. This part was a bit disappointing since they don’t exactly offer much leniency onto other formats. It even got worse when we realized that they hadn’t included any conversion tools, specify where to download samples, or to know exactly what is supported. This wasn’t an issue for us since we’ve got tools to re-encode videos, however some one-click conversion tool like the one in iTunes should be included for general consumers. We also found that all the Movie Trailers we downloaded which were encoded for iPods on iTunes worked just perfectly. Finally for the part people almost never use, photos, the unit has been limited only to JPEG.

Interface: – 4/5
We were quite pleased with the interface as not only looked fancy, but was also clean and quick. The learning curve is short, only requiring a few minutes to master. The Walkman has even got some neat features such as holding the ‘back’ key will take you back to the main menu and the ‘option’ key will power down the Walkman. Music can be surfed through by Album, Artist, Genre, Year, or in a long list of All Songs. Photos will appear in a simple folder layout just as they are copied onto the unit. Videos on the other hand will appear in a straightforward single list with thumbnails. The Now Playing screen displays standard song data plus Album Art. In addition to the standard Shuffle, Sony has added an interesting “Time Machine” Shuffle now randomly selects a year and plays songs within it. A search feature, which only works for music, can be found in the main menu, however was quite disappointing since it only lets users search for the starting alphabet of an Album, Artist or Song. The settings menu were pretty clear-cut, offering equalizer, volume limiting, and playback mode settings for music, slideshow interval settings for photos, and orientation plus brightness options for videos.

FM Radio: – 4.5/5
The quality of the built in radio was strikingly good. It has been hard wired and coded into the unit and isn’t just an extra add-on. Browsing through channels was both smooth and quick. The Walkman utilizes the plugged in headphones as an antenna to gain better signal. Users can save their favorite stations into any of the 30 available presets by simply holding down the “play” key.

Syncing Media: – 5/5
Transferring data to the NWZ-S610 was a cinch. We didn’t have to deal with any drivers or compatibility issues, both my Vista and XP machines detected and self-configured the device automatically after connecting the USB cable. Since the unit is “Play For Sure” it works with Windows Media Player 11. We had no issue copying songs over and received no errors. Since the songs are DRM-Free the unit isn’t limited to just a few “licensed machines” as iPods are. Songs can be taken from one machine and a friend can easily copy, add or remove your files. We didn’t have a chance to test the unit on a Mac OS X computer and Sony doesn’t mention anything about it. We’re going to assume that if a Mac is able to recognize the unit as a mass storage device there shouldn’t be any problems since the Walkman automatically creates Music, Picture, and Video folders, which can be seen when the drive folder is opened. When compatible media is copied into the corresponding folders, the Walkman will automatically index them after being disconnected, and the items will appear in the interface.

In The Box: – 3.5/5
Other than the S610 Walkman, Sony bundles a pair of stereo headphones, a USB cable, a dock adapter, and a Quick Start guide. For such a great Walkman we were very disappointed to see how poor of quality the included headphones were. If you purchase this Walkman or even an iPod for that matter, we suggest upgrading to the Shure SE110 or SE210. Anyways, back to the box, a CD with Windows Media Player 11, Napster (trial), and a MP3 Conversion Tool (based off SonicStage) was also included.

Overall we give Sony’s Video Walkman a BIG THUMBS UP! Even though some work still needs to be done around the video part, I was satisfied to see that they have finally dumped DRM which was holding them back. I will bet that if they continue to keep their players open to a variety of content, they will be able to boost their sales. As we mentioned the video codecs are a bit limited, but most iPod formatted content should work. This should also be resolved possibly with a firmware update or when they launch a second generation Video Walkman. As for this one, it is available online and in stores as of this month and is very reasonably priced at $99, $129, and $179 for 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB. Exactly $20 cheaper than each of the new iPod Nanos of the corresponding size capacities. We recommend this Sony Walkman to anyone who is finally willing to give iPods a break, wants to be free from DRM, likes occasionally listen to the radio, and is looking for a cheaper unique product which everyone else doesn’t have.

Important Note: The unit which was provided by Sony and was used for review was the NZW-S616F which held 4GB and was silver.

Buy: Sony NWZ-S616 (4GB) | Link: SonyStyle.com

Last week Creative introduced a new “credit-card-sized” multimedia player with a 2.5-inch simply called the Creative ZEN. One neat aspect is that it now supports playback of the new unprotected iTunes Plus tracks in addition to DRM-Free WMA and MP3. As for paid media, the unit is compatible with Napster to Go. And for video formats the ZEN can read WMV9, MJPEG, MP4, DivX, and XviD. In addition it reads JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF since it’s also a photo viewer.

Other features built into the ZEN, which aren’t found on iPods, include a FM radio with 32 custom presets, a voice recorder, and an organizer with contacts, to do lists, and calendar which syncs with Microsoft Outlook. The unit is available in capacities of 4GB, 8GB, and a whopping 16GB (all flash-based). In addition the unit accepts standard SD cards, which are available at prices as low as $20 for 2GB. As for battery life, Creative claims approx. 25 hours for music and 5 hours for video playback.

The new Creative ZEN hit the market this month (September 2007) in Asia and unfortunately isn’t available yet in the United States. Creative is expected to launch this product worldwide very soon. As for pricing, after a currency conversion, the units will approximately cost $150 for 4GB, $200 for 8GB, and $300 for 16GB ($USD). As the holiday season is only a few months away it will be interesting to see what types of media players other companies including Creative will introduce to compete with Apple’s infamous iPod. We are trying to get a hold of a unit for review, so check back soon!

UPDATE 09/20/07: We’re getting one next week for sure and we promise an in-depth review!

Links: Creative Zen Product Info
Pre-Order: 4GB | 8GB | 16GB via Amazon

Google has constantly been adding new features to Gmail since it originally launched in 2004. Over the last two years they have added over 2GB of storage space, RSS feed reader, virus scanning, chat, and many more features. Their latest add-on allows Gmail users to associate images with each contact (email address), therefore making it easier than ever to identify contacts. Although this may be a “new feature” for Gmail, other email services such as Yahoo! Mail have already been working on implementing custom “avatars,” which are used in Yahoo! Messenger, into their mail services for a long time.

This feature, as usual, is currently only available to a few users; however Google will eventually enable this feature for every account. Once this feature is enabled, the next time you get an email from your friend you may see an image your friend has selected or one that you may have set for him. Check back here for more information, but in the meantime login to your Gmail account and check if you already have this feature.

Links: Gmail | Gmail “Whats New!”
Related: Google Integration | Gmail Anti-Virus

Sprint recently contacted Skatter Tech and offered us an opportunity to participate in their “Ambassador Program”. The program is for Sprint to help themselves learn more about their products and services; they do so by selecting individuals to test out their products. We replied and agreed to join the program and we were immediately accepted. In their confirmation message they stated that they would be sending us a Sprint Power Vision phone and would also provide 6-months of all-access service. (means unlimited free calling) They will also provide allow unlimited access to their Music Store, TV Broadcasts, Games, and Web/Data Access. All this in return for our feedback. (we may also get a TiVo Series 3 for testing soon)

We later received another message stating which phone we would be receiving. It turned out to be a Samsung MM-A920, which retails at $300 on Sprint’s Store. The phone should arrive within 2-3 weeks. The phone seems to have the the top hardware specs: bluetooth, extra memory, 1 megapixel camera w/ flash, speakerphone, and more. This looks like a great phone and we hope it will be. We will throw up a full review of the phone and their new services as soon as we it.

Links: Sprint | Samsung A920