iPod nano

Sound quality is very good but it is recommended that the supplied headphones are replaced. Unless, of course, you just have to be seen with the iconic white buds.

The screen will also display album art but again there's no detail because of its size. Battery life has improved, though, offering around 10 hours of continuous play in our tests. The nano also ditches FireWire in favour of a USB 2 connection and, thankfully, the cable is included in the box.

So, that's a substantial amount of praise for yet another Apple product, but what's wrong with it? Well, for starters you can't attach an in-line remote control and no dock is included in the box; it costs £19 as an optional extra.

There is a dock adapter but this is a universal cradle designed for third-party speaker systems and isn't compatible with older iPod docks.

What's more, just as this review was being written, there were numerous reports of easily scratched fascias, which doesn't fill us with confidence that the nano will stay shiny for long without protection.

Then there's the price. Stylistically you won't find anything else like it, but for an extra £30 you can buy an iPod photo with a 20Gb hard disk rather than 4Gb.

If you change your playlists every couple of days, the nano's compromise of portability over capacity will be for you. If you prefer to have weeks' worth of music in one device, plump for a model with more capacity.