Ok, some of you may know from the forum, or just knowing me, that i have a iPod nano, this, whilst being a proper style whore accessory has tended to get vastly more use than i ever thought it would do, especially scince i can connect it to the car stereo for some bass filled beats. Well like everything the nano has its faults, one being the most stupidly easy to scratch surface scince brushed aluminium (which it almost has on the rear) - anyway, even with taking a mad amount of care over my nano it has got a bit scratched up just from sharing my pocket with its own earphones, not ideal. Eager to prolong the life and sexyness (and my word is it sexy) i decided to get a case, i perused the internet and read reviews on ilounge and so fourth, did, as i always do, a fair bit of research on what case was the best. Anyway, nothing looked particularly sexy OR protective in the way i desired, that was, untill i saw an iSkin on some random japanese website - with is lumionus appeal and silicone texture it had me interested, top that off with total protection of the screen and clickwheel and i was hooked, next was to locate a store in a language i could understand.
Not suprisingly iSkin.com was the home of iSkins, seems pretty obvious now - but my japanese wasnt so good and i was new to the world of pod protection. Anyway, i went onto their website but the skin wasnt available, i was distraught, but there was a function to get an email when they were available, this didnt take to long (tho long enough for the pod to suffer some more scratches) and i ordered the orange and grey skin up straight away…
…it arrived today, 3 working days after i ordered it, i paid using paypal which all went swimingly other than it left me a little confused as to if they knew what colour skin i wanted, regardless, today when i got home i pealed open the stupidly large box that had winged its way over from canada and took out my iSkin, you could tell from the way it was packaged that it was already far more deserving of its 25quid (inc delivery) price tag than the ebay specials that go for 15quid less. I slid on the inner skin, put the screen protector in place, then pushed it into the outer skin, which holds the hard perspex screen protector in, i then inserted the little click wheel disc that makes the newly covered clickwheel feel slidy and ‘tactile’ like it normally does - its suprising how effective this is at both working and preventing crap from getting into or onto the iPod.
Like everything there are downpoints, the lugs that fill the docking port and the earphone port, whilst fitting into the iPod well didnt allow amazingly easy access to the dock port but after a bit of wiggling about I had no sustained problems using the ports - the hold button is accessable also without removing the cover.
Conclusion
I would have to say that as far as the covers/skins for the nano i have seen go this is the best, i had a feeling it would be which is why i waited for it, its difficult to compare it to hard cases but for me the feel and protection given by a good qualite silicone case is unsurpassed and thats why i would highly reccomend this cover to anyone wishing to maintain the looks of their nano. The iSkin also has a decent belt clip on the back of it that is removable and rugged enough not to break at the first knock, so if this feature is or isnt important to you you can adapt the case to suit your needs, this must also count as a plus point.
Chaz