iPods have been around long enough that many of us take them for granted.   Yes, they’re small. Yes, they hold a lot of music. And yes, they’re cool. That’s   pretty much the baseline for any iPod. It takes something special to break   through our now-jaded iPod sensibilities. The iPod nano, with its tiny size,   sleek look, colorful display, and responsive controls is that special   something.

The nano is, in many ways, a hybrid of the iPod shuffle, the now-discontinued   iPod mini, and today’s full-sized color iPods. Like the iPod shuffle, the nano   uses flash memory (available in 2GB and 4GB configurations, priced at $199 and   $249 respectively) rather than a hard drive. The higher-capacity nano holds the   same 1,000 tracks as the original iPod mini. And like the mini, the nano   dispenses with such higher-end capabilities as audio recording, downloading   pictures from a camera attachment, and projecting slideshows to an attached   television or projector.

Unlike with full-sized iPods, you can’t install Mac OS X on the nano and boot   from it—the Mac OS Installer recognizes the nano but refuses to install to it.   (The iPod mini shared this same limitation.) Yet, like a full-sized iPod, the   nano includes a crisp color display and lets you view album art as well as   pictures downloaded from a computer. And just to show that it’s not a complete   “me too” iPod, it sports new Stopwatch, Screen Lock, and Clock features. It’s   also the first iPod that includes an unplayed podcasts indicator (a small blue   dot that appears next to podcasts you haven’t yet listened to) and a Lyrics   screen where you can view any lyrics added to a track within iTunes’ song   information window.