When it was first released, the iPod Nano combined miniscule size with a popular brand and boasted a capacity that sweetened the deal. The new Nano has pretty much the same features in its favour, but if you look a little more closely the formula has been altered a little.

As you’ll see from the above picture, the new Nano isn’t just smaller and slimmer; the form factor has been fundamentally altered. The new Nano is squatter, with our French cousins going so far as to christen it, the ‘fatty’. However, it’s this newfound chubbiness that leads to most of the new Nano’s attractive features; the screen is bigger, which is a definite improvement, but that’s by no means all.

More importantly though, the whole device feels less likely to be snapped in two if you lead the kind of life that necessitates climbing obstacles or if a stripper decides suddenly to sit in your lap (hey, we’re not here to judge, we just think there are more important things you could be doing with your life).

All things considered though, the move to 8GB would be worthwhile enough without taking the new, tougher exterior into consideration. The only issue you’re likely to have with the new Nano that you didn’t with the old is that it tends to sit a lot lower in a pocket, which can make it very difficult to reach… we’ve all done the ‘iPod shuffle’ at some stage.