iPod Nano… Now With Video!

While sitting online yesterday I experienced an onslaught of tweets about the iPod Nano being announced to include a camera with the new 5th Generation model.  Now my first initial thoughts were: “How freakin small are these cameras going to get?”, but then I started to think… are these going to be the new thing, is it going to ward off the Flip and Vado lovers of the world, because now you have a camera, which also plays music and has video effects and syncs with iTunes, holds photos, and all that other jazz.  I decided to investigate further.

So, the iPhone already has a video camera, big deal right?  Well yes, it does, but iPhones are also priced couple of hundred dollars more than the $150 iPod Nano.  Which, for Apple aficionados, is going to be a holy-crap-gotta-have-it product this Christmas season.  But is this camera all that its cranked up to be?  Kinda-sorta.

First off, the video resolution is only 640×480 standard VGA dimensions, which is alright for a lot of people that are shooting video with their digital cameras or their Flip Minos.  The thing that worries me though, is the fact that you can get Flip Ultra HDs and Creative Vados for a little more than what this iPod costs, and they are high definition.  But you have to think what you would be using the camera for.  Do you need HD resolution? Are you shooting video at parties, just random stuff throughout the day?  Family videos for home movies perhaps?  Usually this is the case, and for those people it is fine.  Personally, I like having HD in my hands, but for $150 and to have a mini camera packed into your pocket (the slimmest camera you can get), I don’t think that many people will care that hightly about the resolution only being standard definition.

Next we can look at the functions of the camera itself.  It definitely has some things that the other cameras don’t: special effects built in, as well as interoperability with iTunes, which means no annoying third party software to install.  You have six available special effects: Thermal, Mirror, X-Ray, Sepia, Motion Blur, and Cyborg.  All of these are some of those hokey effects that are fun to use, but never really come in handy.  They look kind of cool though, and add a little bit more fun to the experience.  As for its iTunes functionality, that is awesome, because my entire media center, like a lot of you is based around iTunes.  You also get the ability to upload directly to your MobileMe account (if you have one), Facebook or Youtube, so that you can share with your friends.

Now, we can take a gander at the technical aspects of it, and how well it actually works.  We have already compared and contrasted against the other cameras in its class, as well as its size, but what about the audio?  Well, just like any tiny camera, you get a reasonable amount of wind that shows up if you are shooting somewhere like the beach, but if you are inside, or out during a nice calm day in the desert, the audio picks up pretty well.  Just make sure you don’t rub your fingers against the mic while you are shooting, but that’s a given.  As for how it shoots, it is what is to be expected for $150, and you get what you pay for.  There is quite a bit of visible motion blur and rolling shutter issues happening when you pan or move quickly, as well as some softness close up on subjects or objects.  Other than that… it really is quite a good camera.  One cool point I think that sets the Nano apart from the Minos and those other small cameras, is it doesn’t have dedicated video memory.  It just uses the available memory in the iPod itself to store the video, and they come in 8gb and 16gb versions.

Bottom line is, this is an awesome little camera for quite a few reasons: it’s size, its capacity to record, and it is paired with a freaking iPod!  I mean, if that isn’t a reason to buy a $150 camera, I don’t know what is.  When it comes Christmas time, are you going to choose a Flip Mino that does only video, or the iPod Nano, which does the same thing, but also has a full fledged iPod along for the ride?  Personally I already have a Flip as well as an iPhone, so I won’t be picking one up, but if you are looking for Christmas gifts early on… this is going to be the one to have.  You can check out the page on Apple.com for previews of what the special effects look like, how good the video is, and information on the other features that are new, like the voice recorder, FM radio, pedometer and built in speakers.