Zen Nano Nano - Updated
by - Written: Aug 19 '05 (Updated Jun 30 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Small compact size. Only uses one AAA battery.
Cons: The mechanical pieces are weak and will probably break.
The Bottom Line: Tiny player with large capacity. The good outweigh the bad.
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| gooberpyle's Full Review: |
Update:
The scroller button now stopped working correctly. As I try to use it to change folders, the unit turns off. I strongly recommend buying a service agreement.
After using the Zen Nano for a while now, there is one thing about it that should be noted and allowed for.
Make sure you create plenty of folders for your songs if you have a lot on the player. If not, you have to push the scroller button one song at a time until you reach your selection.
The speed of scrolling through songs is extremely slow because you are forced to allow each song to play for a few seconds before moving to the next. Otherwise it just fast forwards the song.
The Zen Nano 1 gigabyte model mp3 player uses flash memory instead of a disk drive. Flash memory allows the player to get by on a single AAA battery. I suppose a hard disk player could get by on a single AAA battery. Just not for very much time.
Since the flash memory chip doesn't take up much space, why didn't they go ahead and make a larger capacity player? Say something along the lines of 10 gigabytes. Even two times larger wouldn't be that much of an expense.
The dimensions I come up with are about: 2.5 x 1.0 x 1/2 inches. Very small. You can wear it on a cord and barely notice the weight.
The track display is small also. You may want to memorize your tracks.
The scroller button which provides access to the player menu and track selection will probably be the first thing to go bad. It's a tiny mechanical apparatus begging to be worn out with the slightest use.
The same goes for the battery compartment lid. Handle with care or you will need to break out the epoxy kit to rig something up to keep the door in place. A very tiny piece of plastic fits in to a very tiny also fragile slot which holds the battery door in place.
The door may seem a small point but it's little details like this that later on make you lose interest in the player because it's such a hassle to deal with a sloppy battery door.
In using the Zen Nano explorer, there is an option to re-encode your files to a different bitrate.
I do not recommend doing this to files residing on the player. Re-encode them elsewhere. For some reason if you re-encode an mp3 to a lower bitrate, the file ends up taking more space than before. The exact opposite of what you can expect if you convert the file on your hard drive.
The sound quality is excellent. Even using the ear buds which come with the player. However I perceive the quality, it does work as advertised.
Update: A reader stated that lithium ion or nickel cadmium batteries are smaller than AAA batteries. Products using AAA batteries are cheaper over the long run because you can use the metal hydride rechargeable AAA at a savings of hundreds of dollars in battery cost. The savings in batteries would pay for the mp3 player many times over.
Recommended:
No
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