Ipod Nano

Launched alongside the Apple and Motorola Rokr phone, the new Ipod Nano replaces the highly successful Ipod Mini.

Available in both black and white, the Nano is even smaller than the Mini - it is the height of a credit card and the thickness of about five. Despite its compact design, the Nano provides a respectable amount of storage ­ either 2GB for £139 or 4GB for £179, both in the form of flash drives.

Flash players have one big advantage over hard disk models (such as the standard Ipod) in that they are more robust. With no moving parts, flash memory is far less likely to be damaged if you drop the player. There have been concerns about easily cracked screens, although Apple says there was a quality problem with a small batch of Nanos.

A USB cable must be used to transfer songs, digital photos, contacts and calendar info from a Mac or PC. The cable also provides power to the rechargeable battery, which lasts for 12-14 hours on a full charge.

The Nano also has a colour screen, but at just 1.5in it’s not ideal for viewing photos. Even so, it’s useful to be able to view album artwork, calendars and other information.

There’s no dock supplied with the Nano, but it has the same docking connector as the larger Ipod models. We managed to hook it up to a 40GB Ipod docking station, as well as with some Ipod speaker systems.

Although digital rights management (DRM) files are supported through the aac format used by Itunes, wma DRM files aren’t catered for. Indeed, the wma format as a whole is ignored, which is something Apple seriously needs to reconsider.

It’s not the cheapest mp3 player on the market (with a best buy search you'll find Creative’s Zen Micro, which provides 6GB storage capacity, for about £20 less), but it’s certainly the most attractive.