So after going hands-on with the 3G Nano and the Classic, dapreview felt that performance was a little under par for the course, especially when loading album covers with Coverflow. That got them curious, so they checked out the in-depth reviews done by iLounge and Ars Technica to see just how the new devices perform.

In a definitely nonstandard turn of events, it seems that the new Nano does audio for 30 hours and 21 minutes, extending the rated time of 24 hours. Playing videos gets you 5 hours and 47 minutes, more than the 5-hour-flat rating of Apple.

The 80GB Classic runs audio for 6 hours and 16 minutes longer than the manufacturers 30 hour estimated time. Videos go for 1 hour and 46 minutes more than Apple’s given 5 hours. The 160GB version, on the other hand, does audio and video at 58 hours and 14 minutes, and 9 hours and 28 minutes, respectively. This exceeds the rated time of 40 hours and 7 hours.

Now for the bad news: it looks like the Classic takes twice as long to boot as the previous iPod-with-video (5.5G), and navigating to a song takes 45 percent longer. However, these finding should be taken with a grain of salt, as you can navigate through the Classic’s menu faster than in the older version if you skip the menu transitions. Also, the performance tests were done from a cold boot, which is far from being common in real-world situations.

[via dapreview]