The USB 2.0 transfer is annoying. I actually don't recall if my PowerBook G4 (12'', 867 mhz) has USB 2.0 or just 1.1. But I am just feeling a bit burnt out by the clicking noises and whirs that my failing hard drive gives me on my current iPod if I try to synch it.

I'm viscerally tempted, too, except for three things:  

1. My 20GB 2G iPod still works perfectly fine for all my uses. The hard drive has so far been OK, and I still get acceptable battery life.  

2. The nano requires USB 2.0 for fast synching, which my old Titanium PowerBook G4 doesn't have. (I could buy a USB 2.0 PC Card, but that's annoying.)  

3. Except for the physical size, none of the improvements that the nano represents are really the ones I've personally been longing for. I don't need a tiny photo-viewer, and I don't look at my iPod much while I'm listening, so having album art and colors isn't particularly interesting for the existing functions.  

What I really want is an iPod that is also a wireless internet appliance, 802.11g node, GPS, cell phone and compact underwater-rated camera (with good macro-focusing). That's all.

I am sorely tempted by the iPod Nanos, even though it doesn't have the capacity I want. But my 3rd generation 20 GB iPod has had a terrible hard drive failure — no longer can update songs on the driver, and can't synch calendars or contacts — and a flash memory drive seems like it may be safer.  

There is something very troubling about the reviewer for the Times trying to demonstrate his appreciation by deep-throating one of the new models, however.  

graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/15/technology/15pogue_video.162.jpg