First Impression: Nike Amp+

Sean Downey

Nike’s new Amp+ watch is finally here, and it’s a pretty slick little iPod remote control. Too bad they left out the stopwatch.

I took the $79 Amp+ for a run yesterday to get a better idea of what it adds to the Nike+ experience. Made of polyurethane and stainless steel, it’s rugged and water resistant to 165 feet. Besides the raised ring with the familiar iPod controls on the face, the watch looks like a simple rubber wristband. Press a button and the LED display flashes the hours and minutes of the day (no seconds and no date). To do anything else, the watch needs the Nike+ kit.

Once it was paired with my Nike+ equipped Nano, the Amp+ worked as a remote control, allowing me to jump through my playlist from song to song and crank the volume when I found something I liked. Each time I pressed a button on the watch, the LED icons filled the display to let me know what it was doing. Unlike Timex’s Ironman iControl, the other iPod controlling watch, there was no delay between pushing a button on the Amp+ and having the action take place on the Nano. In the iControl’s case this two-second pause is a result of its buttons being mapped to different functions. This also means that the iControl can’t fast-forward or rewind through songs like the Amp+ can.