When he unveiled the new video-playing Ipod, Apple supremo Steve Jobs said: ‘This is the best Ipod for music ever, and customers basically get the video for free.’

That’s the key to the new Ipod. It’s not meant to be a portable TV or video player, but a really good mp3 player with a bit of video thrown in as an added bonus.
In order to view video, the Ipod has a slightly larger screen than before – 320 x 240 resolution, measuring 2.5in diagonally.

However, it is smaller than previous Ipods in overall terms, thanks to the use of a more compact internal hard disk.

There are two models available, 30GB and 60GB, and you can also choose between white or black (the black Ipod nano is far more popular than the white one). Apple says that the 30GB model can store 7,500 songs or 75 hours of video and twice that for the 60GB model.

The video image is clear, bright and surprisingly sharp, given the size of the screen. Even so, we’re not sure we’d want to stare at it for more than about half an hour, as it could give you a bit of eye-strain. 

Apple however, isn’t suggesting you watch the entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy on the Ipod. The idea is you just buy a few music videos from the Itunes store and use them to pass the time on the train to school or work in the morning. And, of course, you can still use it to listen to endless hours of music as well.

Watch out for the battery life, though, as playing video cuts the battery time down from almost 14 hours to just two. In other words, the new Ipod is pretty much what Apple says it is – a very good music player that also plays a bit of video.