Just a quarter inch thick, the new iPod Nano has replaced the iPod Mini as the new fad in portable music.

IT Services Computer Sales has quickly run out of the four gigabyte version of the Nano, going through its stock in only three days.

“We’ve been trying to get more Nanos in,” Hughes says. “We want to get as many as fast as possible.”

The Nano is 62 percent smaller than the Mini and weighs only 1.5 ounces.

Bill Hughes, employee of Information Technology Services Computer Sales, says people underestimate how small the Nano is.

“Everyone sees the commercial, the hand playing around with it – no one understands, it takes them back,” says Hughes, junior in electrical engineering. “It doesn’t do them justice.”

Seth Hoveland, Apple Computers campus representative for Iowa State, says there wasn’t anything wrong with the iPod Mini, Apple has just decided to improve it.

“It’s fixing something that isn’t broken,” says Hoveland, senior in liberal studies.

The Nano has also been built with flash memory, available in both a two- and four-gigabyte version. The flash drive also means there will be no skipping while playing.

“Flash memory has no moving parts, so it is harder to break,” Hoveland says. “It took throwing it 40 feet in the air to break it.”

The Nano is comparably priced to the Mini, with the two gigabyte version priced at $199 and the four gigabyte priced at $249.

An improvement over the previous Mini, the Nano has a 1.5 inch color monitor, as well as the touch-sensitive iPod click wheel.

With the color screen, iPod users can now see pictures with the ability to display album art.

Also with the Nano comes earbud headphones, a USB 2.0 cable, a dock adapter and an iTunes CD. A number of other accessories are also available separately, including armband carriers and lanyard headphones for mobile listening.

Dustin Whited, employee of IT Sales on campus, has purchased a Nano. Being what he calls an “iPod freak,” he purchased a Nano to go with his other iPods.

Whited, sophomore in art and design, says the improvements to the Nano he likes most are the color screen and the sturdiness of the flash drive.

“The back can get scratched pretty easy,” he says. “So you would probably want to get a tube to cover it.”

Tubes are covers which protect the iPod. Whited showed a demo Nano that had only been open for two days and had become visibly scratched.