Hands on With the iPod Nano and the ROKR Phone

My colleague Denny Arar hit our local Apple Store in San Francisco's Union Square today to buy an iPod Nano for herself--and she was nice enough to bring another back to the PC World offices for review. Our compatriot Ed Albro was the lucky guy who did the testing. (I ran into him in the hallway, his earbuds in place, and he seemed to be having a good time.)

Here's Ed's first look. He didn't love the Nano unreservedly, but he did like it an awful lot. (In fact, he gave it an impressive four and a half stars on our five-star scale--and no music player has ever scored a perfect five stars.)

Over at our sister site Playlist, Chris Breen posted his own review of the Nano yesterday--the quickest hands-on evaluation I saw. The folks at iLounge have also posted their take, with lots of photos.

And here's an evaluation from the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg.

Four reviews, four enthusiastic responses--I wonder if anyone will try this device and hate it?

Meanwhile, fewer folks seem to have actually gotten their hands on Motorola's ROKR iTunes phone. The New York Times' David Pogue did, however, and he gives it a mildly positive review. The Chicago Tribune's Eric Benderoff also tried the phone, apparently in the presence of a Cingular exec, and experienced some technical glitches.

(Incidentally, I just realized I've been spelling the name of that Motorola phone wrong--I've repeatedly called it the ROCKR. Somehow, I don't feel overly guilty. But given Motorola's recent product-naming strategy, I wonder how long it'll be until it redubs itself MOTRL?)