I threw a pair of Ars Technica Employees from a car at highway speeds and they were completely torn apart. How am I supposed to use them now? If they can't survive this simple test they must be worthless.

Have you ever considered that current jeans are often aged using pumice stones washes?
Most of the times when you put your hands in new jeans you find pumice powder in them, very abrasive.
So the fault with iPod Nanos is that they are really pocketable, and that pockets are filled with abrasive powder these days.
Ciao,
Dino.

your are one negative apple hating guy are you not. Apple does not suffer any more defect than any other well known brand selling comparible computers. I work for an reseller that sells IBM, HP Apple and Fujitsu Siemes computers They to has defects but the defects on all of these are small compared to the number of machines that goes through our system.

phonetically, the name says it all. just pissed you haven't owned apple stock (or kickass products) over the laster several years? you'd be smiling like me if you had :-)

All the people who keep posting "well, things scratch" must not actually own a nano.

I have owned a RAZR phone now for 2 months, being pocketed daily. After that time, the plastic part on the outer LCD screen has exactly zero visible scratches. The surface under it is black, similar to the Nano, so a scratch would show up.

My Nano in the same pocket condition saw severe scratches on both the front and back sides after two days.

I personally don't care if Apple says the Nano is made from the same materials as the other iPods. It's a device that should be pocketable, and survive such an experience. I stopped carrying my Nano around, but if I hadn't, I'd estimate I'd only have about 1 or 2 more months before the screen would become unreadable. The device is not properly designed to be used outside of a carrying case. It also did not include such a device. To me, that justifies the lawsuit in a minor way, though I still thing the guy is insane for what he wants out of it.

Also, for the record, my 2 year old Rio Karma player has one noticeable scratch on it's plastic face, and some minor blemishes to the back. Nothing that impedes the operation, and this is after some pocket use, lots of travel in my laptop bag, and several motorcycle rides with it inside my motorcycle jacket. All without a carrying case. If normal iPods are truly built the same as the Nano, I think the Nano will be my last Apple music player.

There was originally a molding defect with the original G4 Cubes. A few people made a big stink about it and some got units replaced, however I don't think it hurt apple's reputation one bit. Most people don't even remembr what they had for breakfast much less what class action lawsuites are going on.

your are one negative apple hating guy are you not.

No, just pointing out that Apple already has a slew of issues, several of which they've had to cover in repair programs (their effort to avoid a recall). Of course, they also don't publicize some of their repair programs, but that's neither here nor there.

All I'm saying is that every line of Apple's computers have seen their share of serious quality issues. And as such, since that hasn't hurt their image, why should scratching nanos hurt it (although since Apple is now an iPod company first, computer company second, maybe it will).

Apple does not suffer any more defect than any other well known brand selling comparible computers. I work for an reseller that sells IBM, HP Apple and Fujitsu Siemes computers They to has defects but the defects on all of these are small compared to the number of machines that goes through our system.

I never said other manufacturers were better. Or that Apple had more defects. I was just pointing out that their track record isn't the pristine "oh, Apple is great, its the user's fault" image some like to pretend.

just pissed you haven't owned apple stock (or kickass products) over the laster several years? you'd be smiling like me if you had :-)

Well, I own Apple stock, have owned apple stock in the past, and probably will in the future. That's neither here nor there. Crappy products is crappy products (oh, besides being defective, Apple has, of late, really released some lame-a** updates as well, finally getting an update to the G5s long after it needed it). Dell has crappy products, and their stock is doing fine too. One doesn't equate to the other.

Oh, and I do own several macs, from an iBook G3 (yes, I'm on my third motherboard), and a 2.3GHz dual G5 (which was a computer I was waiting years for and finally gave up and bought, since who knew when Apple was ever going to improve its video or internal architectures (they've finally gotten around to adding a third USB port to the back of the computer! Wow, now I could actually plug in a keyboard, UPS, AND printer. Sure, no scanner, no cable for my camera or USB hard drives. But that's OK, no one really uses USB anyway, right).

iPods scratch easily in general. Under normal movement in pocket, that's enough abrasion to scratch the silvery surface of the iPod already.

So I'm not at all surprised that the nano scratches like that as well. The stupid thing is that the nano was rolled out without a casing.

From the very start, I had the nano in a glad sandwich bag, and *even* that applied scratches to the nano. So any prospective nano owner should consider putting it in a very soft cloth bag or sock.