Fashion over function

"It's impossibly small." "It's thinner than a NO.2 pencil." - Apple CEO Steve Jobs commenting on the new iPod nano.

Stop, everybody just shut it down and stop for a second. Now, iPods are amazing devices; I've come to depend on mine. My CDs have been collecting dust since I purchased mine a few months ago. I get home from work and plug the iPod into the stereo. Boom, rock. Everything at the push of a button. Technology babies we surely are.

One thing that kept me from being an early adopter to the iPod was the price tag. They originally started at around $400 US. I was content with my CD collection and since I was commuting by car that had a CD player I didn't really care about any sort of portable mp3 player. My friends who were on the train and walking a hundred blocks a day in the city all had iPods before me, which made total sense. And of course as time went on the price went down and the memory went up. So I went for it. I purchased the standard 20 GB model.

So now iPods are all the rage and it doesn't surprise me at all. They are smart and quality. If you can afford it, get it, you'll love it. Now, again, back to the financials of it. Dropping a few hundred dollars isn't easy for most. But I don't really think people are checking out the specs on these before they're buying. It seems that they're looking at the ones that come in pretty colors, or now the one that is the thinnest and just impulse buying. What ever happened to reading the fine print (it's not really that fine I guess) and seeing what you're getting for your money?

Let's do some math and compare two of the above-mentioned models.

nano : 4 GB : 1.5 ounces : $249
iPod : 20 GB : 5.9 ounces : $299

Ok, so now. The only thing the nano has going for it is its weight. We're talking about ounces here kids. Oh, you're sporty and you like to run with your iPod and you want the nano because it's ultra light? If you can't handle an extra 4 ounces on your jog then you should make a beeline to Hooters and give up. This is ridiculous. The difference here is you get 16 more gigs (approximately 4000 songs) for $50 more. And this pricing is for the new standard iPod that comes with a color screen! Compare all of the specs here.