Cute as a button: iPod nano

Apple aren't short of successful MP3 players at the moment, but old Steve Jobs has decided to scrap the company's most popular player at the height of its success and replace it with this: the iPod nano. As Apple boasts on its website, the nano is indeed 'impossibly small'. Barely thicker than a human hair but with a capacity of 1,000 songs, the Nano hopes to capture what little remains of the non-Apple MP3 player market.

Only 90 by 40 by 6.9mm and weighing just 42g, it holds up to three days' worth of music and pumps rock into your pretty ears for up to 14 hours without a recharge. The nano is available in 2GB and 4GB versions, priced £139 and £179 respectively. You can also pick from black or white liveries.

We tried to swallow one at the Apple launch party in London last night, but since drinks weren't allowed into the viewing area we would have had to swallow it dry. Not something we were prepared to do, even for the kudos of getting the first review.

If we were stupid we would use this last paragraph to speculate about whether Apple should be risking everything on such a major change to its most successful MP3 player to date. But since we're as clever as a tree full of chimps, we'll bank on Steve Jobs knowing exactly what he's doing and the nano being the most popular MP3 player the world has ever known. -CS