Buta no Ie

It seems my lady and I are quite the material couple. My eyes grow larger at the sight of techy gizmos, her’s at the latest from Europe’s fashion houses.

My eyes must have been really big last week at the Apple Store in San Francisco. I’m at the store to meet up with my cousin for dinner, and the next thing you know, I’m leaving with a brand-spanking new 2nd-gen iPod Nano. Naturally it’s the black 8Gb version.

On the flight home I’m worrying about how I’ll explain this new purchase to the woman. What if she doesn’t like it? I could always sell it. Maybe even at a profit since the 2G Nanos aren’t available at retail in Canada yet. What if she does? Maybe we can sell our other iPod, a 20Gb 4G click-wheel.

The worrying was all for naught. I show her the new Nano and she goes:

“I didn’t even know there’s a new iPod.”

“Is it mine?”

“We’ll need to get a case before it gets scratched.”

We head to Future Shop to see if they have any cases that will fit the new Nano. After having not much luck asking the friendly but clueless sales person, the my girl says:

“I don’t want a plastic case because it’ll scratch the iPod. Why don’t we check the Coach and Gucci stores? Maybe they have cases for the iPod.”

Ah-ha! Not only does she now have a shiny new gizmo, she wants to bling it out as well! So we head over to the Coach store, and yes, they have a bunch of cases for the Nanos. She picks their signature casing, natch. I’m glad we didn’t have to venture into the LV or Gucci stores across the street. Who knows how much their cases would have set us back.

Any hoo… Ars Technica has a great review of the new Nanos with lots of the requisite photos. They submit a 2Gb Nano to a guantlet of torture tests, trying to scratch the screen and casing, dropping it and even putting the Nano through the wash.

One more thing… that Coach case doesn’t actually protect the screen from scratches, as there’s no film or anything in the opening for the screen. We ended up getting the Logiix Protector Nano. The kit includes a couple of protective films, a microfibre cloth to clean the iPod and a soft card to “squeegee” out the bubbles when you place the protector on the screen. The protective film is cut perfectly to the size of the screen and it dropped right in to the screen frame. When I showed the iPod to a co-worker, he didn’t even notice there was a protector applied to the Nano.