The 1.5-inch liquid crystal display has blue-white LED backlight, 176-by-132-pixel resolution and 0.168mm dot pitch. The new nano's display is 40 percent brighter than that of the earlier version, said Apple Computer Inc. The display sits just a fraction of a millimetre lower than the aluminum shell, which, hopefully, should protect it from scratching. Another nice design feature is that the center button now is slightly recessed.

The new nano comes with a choice between 2G byte, 4G byte and 8G byte capacity. The one I reviewed is 4G byte and it couldn't take all my music so I couldn't put photos on it, but I should probably clean up my music storage anyway, or else go for the 8G byte version. The 2G byte version holds 500 songs; the 4G byte holds 1,000 and the 8G byte 2,000 songs.

I love how the iPod automatically sorts music into artists, albums, songs, composers and genres. And, if you are still having problems finding a certain song, there is also a very easy to use search function.

When fully charged the nano will play your songs for up to 24 hours, said Apple. The viewing time for a photo slideshow with music is up to five hours. Full-charge time is about three hours.

The new nano comes shipped in a cute little box that contains earphones, a USB 2.0 cable and a dock adapter. The 2G byte nano costs NZ$249 (US$173); the 4G byte costs $349 and the 8G byte costs $449, and, of course, they are now available from New Zealand's own Apple online store.