I’m not a careless user. I take care of my equipment. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when a scratch appears on anything. Do you think that because the iPod is flash-memory based and after reading this stress test that I would treat it with less care than anything else? Hell, no.

Even with my care, the nano did manage to leap off the top of one of my speakers and plummet a dizzying height of 9.5 inches. It landed with a dull thud onto the table on which the speaker was sitting. At this point, the sweet sounds of David Gilmour’s guitar playing Comfortably Numb stopped abruptly. I leaped over to the scene of the accident and quickly snatched up the soundless body of the nano. It’s screen was fading away amidst a series of vertical white lines. Any attempts to revive it (aka pressing buttons randomly since I have no idea how to fix these things) gave no response.

The next day, I decided I would take the iPod back to the Apple Store in Yorkdale Mall (Toronto) and see if they could exchange it for a functional one. A friend of mine helped me out by talking with AppleCare for a while and trying a bunch of reset options (with no luck) and then finally driving me up to Yorkdale. Once there, an Apple Genius performed the iPod version of CPR and plugged it directly into a wall outlet (with an adapter). The screen immediately lit up with bright eyes…I mean, color. It was going to be ok!

However, after unplugging it, the nano promptly drifted back into unconsciousness. It would seem that the jarring hit with the table caused the battery to become dislocated. It was essentially a vegetable depending on an outlet at all times. It was a difficult decision to make, but I decided to pull the plug.

Since 4GB nano’s were sold out long ago, I’m now in possession of a Apple Gift Card (for the cost of the nano) and patiently waiting for one of the management members (who has my business card) to call me as soon as the next shipment arrives…

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 17th, 2005 at 6:35 pm and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.