A Rockin' Mother's Day

Traditional Mother's Day gifts usually aren't my thing. I'm allergic to most flowers. I don't wear a lot of jewelry, and when I do wear it, I already have a good stash to choose from. I certainly don't want anything for the house, since I'm not a domestic goddess by any means.

However, I am a geek, and I love music. Which is why I was so impressed when my promotions pal Nichole sent me the Best Buy Mother's Day gift set of the iPod Nano to try out. First, it is a 4GB iPod Nano in either hot pink or silver. That alone is awesome, but Best Buy was smart: they added chocolates and packaged it in a polka dot gift box. An iPod and chocolates? It's like they were thinking of me when they put this gift set together.

I've had an iPod before, but mine is ancient. When I say ancient, I mean it was purchased when you had no color choice other than white, the screen was black and white, and it was a lot weightier than the ones made today. It also was full of technical problems. While it would sync with a Mac without issue, it didn't get along with my Windows computer, and it refused to connect with my computer about 75% of the time. It was a great music player - it was just a pain trying to get music onto it.

When I received my hot pink iPod Nano, I was excited to see how things have changed. First off, this thing is tiny! It fits in my palm, and is about as thick as three credit cards. For those of you lucky enough to be past diaper bags and back to itty-bitty purses, this iPod will easily fit into your purse. For the rest of us, it's nice to not add weight to my already full diaper bag.

The screen is small also, but brilliantly clear and bright. It's in full color, too, so you can view album covers for the songs you're playing. I worried that I might not be able to read the menus well on such a small screen, however the text is clean and easy to read. The click wheel is also smaller, but still just as easy to use as the larger models.

I've had no issues with connecting the iPod to my computer and downloading music. Long gone are the install CDs - now you need only have iTunes on your computer, and it automatically takes care of the setup for you. This iPod is a 4GB model, meaning it will hold about 1,000 songs. Fully charged, it has about 24 hours of battery life.

My only complaint is I wish it came with a cable to recharge the iPod by plugging it into an outlet, instead of recharging via the USB cable and the computer. I have a laptop, which cuts off power when I close it, meaning I can't charge the iPod with it closed. This can be fixed by buying the extra cable - I just wish it would have been included.

And finally, the music quality is as good as it has ever been. I appreciated the clear digital quality of music from my old iPod, and it seems Apple has been successful at keeping this high level of quality, even while making the iPod smaller and smaller.

If you're still looking for a gift for that music-loving or tech-savvy mom in your life, consider this iPod Nano gift set from Best Buy. It's a great MP3 player, and with the addition of the chocolates and the cute gift packaging, she'll think you didn't just grab something off the shelf as you were looking for that new computer game for yourself.

Oh, and the chocolates? They're not Godiva, but they're pretty good! (It's hard for a pregnant woman to ever criticize chocolate.)

Win one! Two other sites are giving these away. You can either go here or here (or both, really) to enter the contests and win your own iPod. Sorry, I'm keeping mine - it's coming with me to the hospital when I go into labor, loaded up with my best relaxation and distraction music.