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Basic Playback (7.75)
 The basic playback controls on the iPod are mainly handled by scroll wheel and select button. The scroll wheel has four buttons: the bottom button is play/pause, left and right will skip between songs, and the top button is the back button (even though it's clearly labeled "Menu"). Fast-forwarding and rewinding is performed in one of two ways. One option is to press and hold one of the skip buttons to search in that respective direction. The other option is to hit the select key on the "Now Playing" screen, then using the scroll wheel to search to the appropriate position in the song: scrolling clockwise will fast-forward, counter-clockwise rewinds. The last playback control is the hold switch, which is nested atop the Nano.
The Nano doesn't have a button for "Stop." This features was common on CD players because it would actually stop the CD from spinning, erase all your play settings, and power the device down. Since the Nano uses a flash-based hard drive, there's no spinning to stop, and people generally like to save their play settings between listening sessions. You also won't see any volume keys on the Nano. You adjust the volume on the Now Playing screen by using the scroll wheel. This is slightly annoying since it makes adjusting the volume a bit more of a chore than it needs to be. As it is, you'll need to dig the Nano out of your pocket, unlock it, adjust the volume, re-lock it, and shove it back in your pocket. If you're really coordinated and have loose-fitting pants, you can maybe circumvent the need to remove the Nano from your pocket. Regardless, a volume switch that still functions when the device is locked -- such as seen on the new iPod Touch -- would have been preferrable.
Advanced Playback (6.50)
The Nano has standard non-Touch iPod options for playback. The settings menu will allow you to toggle shuffle and repeat settings. The two shuffle options available are to shuffle songs within your current playlist or shuffle songs by album. Repeat options include looping the playlist once it's finished or repeating one song ad infinitum. While good options, we're not sure why the "reapeat one" feature wasn't more easily accessible. Chances are you'll want to implement it for a particularly catchy song, let it play until you get sick of it, then flip it off. As it is, leaving this setting on means any given song will repeat until you skip to a new one. Therefore, when you hear a catchy song, you have to sift through a few menus in order to get the song to repeat, then re-sift through those menus to resume normal playback. Though a minor gripe, those who use "repeat one" a lot will undoubtedly get annoyed by the feature's relative inaccessibility.
The "Now Playing" screen will display a few tidbits of information about the song currently playing. A song's title, artist, album, and position in the playlist will all be visible, along with the cover art from the song's album. If you have a shuffle or repeat feature enabled, there will be a small symbol displayed at the bottom of the screen.
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