The micro-mini's more attractive

Past experience with various products tells you that miniaturising a product happens only by cutting out some features of the original.

In the case of Apple which tried to do this with the iPod Mini, however, the exercise has been a great success since the Nano loses none of the features of the Mini, including the great sound, but has a few more of its own, including a colour screen which was something you got only when you bought rival Samsung's portable music systems.

The new features which Apple has added to the Nano include a world clock and a screen lock, among a host of others. The product is available with a 2GB hard disk (enough for 500 songs) and a 4GB one (1,000 songs). The Mini, on the other hand, has a 4BG offering as well as a 6GB one (1500 songs).

The fundamental change, of course, is that the Nano is slim and really thin "" around half the size of the Mini. It is around 9 cm in length (the Mini is around 9.3 cm), 3.9 cm in width (the Mini is about 5-6 mm longer) and only 0.6 cm's thick (virtually half of a Mini). And it weights a mere 42.5 grams. So you can carry it in your front pocket, unlike the Mini, without anyone seeing a bulge in the pocket.

But surely it won't handle as well as the Mini, given the normal size of the human thumb? A common apprehension, fortunately it didn't quite hold.

The scroll wheel is as easy to manoeuvre as in the case of the iPod Mini, (in fact being smaller, it is more compact), the colour screen is brilliant (compared to the black and white in a Mini), so there is no problem while reading the name of the song on the screen even though it is smaller than the Mini by around 2 mm in height and 4 mm in width.

Best of all, the Nano syncs with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, which means you can use it as a diary and a calendar as well "" you can't do this with the Mini.

The Nano, again unlike the Mini, also has a screen lock, like you have in mobile phones. Once the lock is on, the only thing you can do is play and pause. The Nano also comes with a stop watch, and stores details like your length of your shortest and longest laps.

You can also transfer your photo album from the computer via iTunes and the 4GB machine can store as many as 1,000 photographs. The Nano lets you work on a slideshow as well, by determining the time of each slide, adding in music from what you have stored and even shuffling pictures. The picture quality is not the greatest, but OK given the screen size. It supports a wide range of picture files, from JPEG to TIFF.

I found little difference in the sound quality of the Mini and the Nano (a major plus, for me) though some experts tell me it is actually better. The ear buds provided in the Nano are the same as those in the Mini.

Apple claims a battery life of 14 hours of listening though I didn't use the Nano long enough to see whether it has the same problem I face with the Mini "" if I don't use it for a week, even when fully charged, the battery drains out substantially.

The Nano is based on flash technology, and I didn't see it hanging suddenly, as happens with the Mini "" when that happens, you need to reset the machine and back it up again with your PC to get back the original music.

What I don't like about the Nano is that its earphones have to be connected from the base, unlike the older iPods where the socket is on the top. So you have to keep the machine upside down when in your pocket. For those used to the older iPod this is an irritant.

For instance, what will you do to the accessories (like the iTrip which helps in syncing your music with your FM radio in the car), which are rationally connected with the earphone socket at the top? Especially if you are charging the phone through the connection in the base of the machine.

Also, considering it is a technological innovation, one would have also expected Apple to add on both a FM radio and a recording facility in the machine to make it more attractive and wholesome.

But that is unfortunately missing. The third problem, of course, is understandable "" there are not too many accessories available with the Nano currently.

That, thought, will change soon, given just how well the Nano's sales are doing. There is, right now, no iTrip version for the Nano and even covers to hold it are difficult to come by. But wearable Nano armbands are already in the market.

In India the Nano 2GB retails at a steep Rs 15,200 and the 4GB at Rs 18,200. If you can pick it from abroad, and I recommend you do, the cost is a lot less "" $199 for the 2 GB (Rs 8,995) and $249 for the 4GB (Rs 11,205). In contrast, the iPod Mini with 4GB retails at Rs 14,400 and the 6Gb at Rs 17,400 in India..

The iPod Shuffle with 1 GB capacity sells at Rs 9,500. My advice, as for most such products, is to, first, buy them overseas as the costs there are a lot less. Second, go for the 4GB offering as the additional cost Rs 3,000) is worth it for getting double the memory. I still think, though, that you should consider the Mini seriously before buying a Nano if you don't mind the small bulge in your pocket, given its much lower price.

Also, now that the Nano's in the market, you can expect a further crash in the Mini's prices. I bought a 4GB Mini from Singapore for just Rs 7,000 six months ago, and today it's a lot lower already.