Overview and features

The most amazing thing about Apple's latest iPod touch is its colour.

It's available in both black and white. No, we're not being glib - we mean it!

Apart from the colour change there's no difference here between the specs of the iPod touch 4th Generation from 2010, and this latest refresh. This is certainly not the iPod touch 5th Generation that you may be looking for...

When the iPhone got a bump in specs with the release of the iPhone 4S last October we expected the specs for the iPod touch to get a bump too, but so far they have remained... untouched.

So, it's still available in 8GB, 32GB and 64GB models, the camera still takes 960x720 sill photos and 720p video and has an Apple A4 processor inside. In fact, the only other change, apart from the colour, is that it now ships with the iOS 5 software pre-installed.

So what's it like in white? Well, we could wax lyrical about how its beautiful milky exterior makes it look like a stray ice crystal prized from Superman's Fortress of Solitude, or how it's so thin and light that it feels like you're holding a delicate slice of the Internet in your hand. But, well, unsurprisingly it's startlingly similar to what it was like to use in black.

Saying that it does look good in white, and we wouldn't be surprised if the new colour means there are more iPod touches languishing under Christmas trees this year than there would be otherwise.

The iPod touch range starts at £169 for the 8GB model, but we've found that's simply not enough storage to be practical, especially when you consider that some video-heavy apps from the App Store can weigh in at around 1GB each in size. The 32GB model that we're reviewing here costs £249 and there's also a 64GB iPod touch at £329.

If you haven't looked at an iPod touch in a while because you've got an iPhone then we recommend a trip to your local Apple Store try one out because at just 7.2mm in depth it feels noticeably thinner than an iPhone 4.

At 101 grams, compared to the iPhone 4S' 140 grams it's also noticeably lighter. The other big difference in appearance is its steel back. With its slight curve it fits better in your hand than the iPhone's flat, glass back, but has the downside that it's incredibly receptive to fingerprints, and scratches.

The only other difference in appearance compared with its more expensive sibling is that it lacks the iPhone's mute/lock switch and the screen. While it shares the Retna display of the iPhone 4 and 4S (960x640-pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch) it doesn't use IPS (inter plane switching) which reduces the viewing angle slightly and makes it look slightly darker than the iPhone when you put them side by side.

On the front of the iPod touch you'll find the same VGA camera for FaceTime chats and there are two volume buttons on the side and a sleep/wake button at the top.

Performance

So, while Apple has chosen not to update the hardware of the iPod touch this time around, the release of iOS 5 means its not short of new features. Amongst the 200 that Apple claim, iOS 5 brings iMessage, Game Centre, Notification Centre and Wi-Fi syncing.

The most exciting of these new features for iPod touch owners is iMessage, which brings texting to the device for the first time. Provided you have a Wi-Fi connection you can send text messages, photos, videos to other people with iOS 5 devices, or you can use it to carry on a conversation you're having on, say, your iPhone with somebody else. The group chat feature is also impressive.

And then there's iCloud - sign in with your Apple ID and you get access to iTunes in the Cloud (the ability to get your music purchases downloaded to all your devices automatically), Photo Stream (every photo you take on your iPod touch will now be uploaded to the cloud and appear almost instantly on your your iCloud-connected devices) and Documents in the Cloud which keeps documents in iCloud-enabled apps up to date on all your devices.

Then there's also wireless backups and calendar, email and contacts syncing.

There's certainly no lack of features here. And let's not forget AirPlay either which, when combined with an Apple TV box, enables you to stream all your media from your iPod touch to watch on your HD TV or direct to AirPlay enabled speakers in your house. You can even use your iPod touch as a remote control for your Apple TV.

Of course, iOS 5 is a free upgrade for existing iPod touch owners too, rather than a feature of the very latest iPod touch, and it runs fantastically well on 4th generation iPod touch models. Apps feel snappy and we experienced no slow downs or software crashes.

Camera

The iPod touch's cameras are a bit like the proverbial buses – we waited years for one to appear, and now two have come along at once.

There's a VGA front-facing camera for FaceTime video chat, and a rear-facing one for taking snaps.

Both are welcome additions, even though the latter isn't anywhere near as good as the iPhone 4S's when it comes to taking still photos. At just 960x720 pixels (0.69 megapixels), there were compact cameras a decade ago that were capable of more.

Colour reproduction is slightly colder and less realistic than the iPhone 4, and the angle of view is narrower.

Furthermore, there's no HDR, and the lens is fixed-focus – tapping the screen merely alters the exposure. So while this could take a quick snap of your day out to share on Twitter or Facebook, its uses are limited as a stills camera.

Certainly when compared to the iPhone 4, it's chalk and cheese, and you can see a marked difference between the two photos below, taken from exactly the same position using an iPod touch and an iPhone 4.

iPhone 4 photo...See full-res image

iPod touch 4th Generation photo...See full-res image

Where the camera does hold its own, however, is video recording. It shoots 30 frames per second at a resolution of 1280x720 for 720p HD, and does a decent job.

While colours still aren't as rich as those in iPhone 4 footage, the angle of view was wider and panning was smoother. We'd go so far as to say that we preferred the iPod touch for the sort of straightforward, point-and-shoot video that it's most likely to get used for.

That said, it's still no match for a dedicated camcorder or even a Flip-style pocket device.

Once you've recorded your footage, you can edit and publish it by buying iMovie for £4.99 from the App Store.

FaceTime

Apple has run a major advertising campaign for FaceTime, its video chat service that works over Wi-Fi.

It uses the front-facing camera to film your face as you talk to a friend, while at the same time, beaming their face to your device. Until now, it had been exclusive to the iPhone 4, and you had to make a regular mobile call first.

Now, you can use FaceTime on your iPod touch, and it works a treat. You sign up with your Apple ID (the same one you use for the App Store and iTunes Store) and then anyone with an iPod touch or iPhone 4 can call you, simply using your FaceTime email address.

The only glitch we had with it was when we tried calling a friend whose device wasn't connected to a Wi-Fi network at the time. Instead of getting an error message at our end, we got the regular ringing sound, as though nothing was wrong. The recipient did, however, get a notification of a missed call when we hung up.

Video samples

We recorded three test videos with the new iPod touch. One outside the TechRadar office in the sunshine, one inside the office and one outside using the front-facing camera.

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Media performance

As with all iOS devices, you have to connect the iPod touch up to iTunes before you can use it.

You'll be guided through the setup process, and offered the chance to restore a previous backup to it –so if you've already got an iPod touch or iPhone, transferring all your apps and settings across is a breeze.

If you'd rather not load all your apps onto the iPod, you can simply uncheck the ones you'd rather leave on your computer and resync. Since the iPod touch we tested came with iOS 4.1 installed, we didn't have to wait around while iTunes downloaded any updates – we simply transferred our music across and were ready to go in minutes.

Any apps you buy on the iPod touch are synced to your computer when you next connect it up, although if you manage your music manually, things you buy on the iPod aren't copied across automatically.

While it's easy enough to do this yourself (by right-clicking the iPod's name in iTunes and selecting Transfer Purchases), it would be nice if this was automated.

We mentioned the A4 processor earlier, and boy does it make the iPod touch fly. It boots from cold to the Home screen in 31 seconds, five seconds faster than the iPhone 4. But in reality, there's rarely any need to switch the device off completely – just put it to sleep and you can wake it in an instant as soon as you want to use it.

General performance is identical to the iPhone 4. Swiping between screens is smooth, pop-up alerts appear without jittering and folders sweep open majestically. The whole user interface just oozes class and polish and is a joy to use, as is the on-screen keyboard.

Formats

The included headphones, as we mentioned earlier, don't have a clicker in the wire, and are much as you'd expect from Apple – solid but unspectacular.

Frequency response is between 20Hz and 20,000Hz, with an impedance of 32 ohms. It's worth playing around with the various EQ presets to get a bit more oomph out of them, but you'll never get huge depth or powerful bass.

Sound also starts to get a bit tinny if you turn the volume up very high. Certainly they're better than the ones that came with very early iPods, but if you like your music, it's worth investing a little extra in some specialist earphones.

The iPod supports a range of audio formats, including 8-320Kbps AAC (and the protected variant that you get from the iTunes Store). You can also play HE-AAC, regular and VBR MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless, WAVE and Audible (2, 3, 4, Enhanced Audio, AAX and AAX+).

But it won't play FLAC, OGG or WMA files without converting them on your computer first. If you try to copy an incompatible file to your iPod touch, iTunes will warn you it won't work and will refuse to copy it.

Video-wise, the iPod touch plays a range of formats including up to 720p H.264-encoded formats such as .mp4, .mov and .m4v. It also likes MPEG-4-encoded .mp4, .mov and .m4v, as well as Motion JPEG .avi files. Again, there are free tools for Mac and PC to convert these, such as Videora.

Apple also sells Dock to VGA, Dock to component AV and Dock to Composite AV cables to output video from the iPod touch.

Sound quality

We've never been massive fans of the sound quality on Apple's iPods. It's certainly not awful, but compared to, say, Creative's Zen X-Fi, the sound of the iPod is noticeably lacking. This was true of last year's iPod touch, and not much has changed with the new model.

This weakness becomes more apparent if you use the touch with some more accomplished headphones. We test using some super-duper earphones from Shure, and even with a 320kbps MP3 file (you'll find no snobby audiophiles in the TechRadar office!) the music quality can sound a tad muddy compared to the Zen or even some of Sony's Walkman devices.

If we were Apple, we'd sling Creative some pocket money and stick some of that X-Fi technology into the touch and the iPad. Unfortunately, it's more likely that we'll see Steve Jobs landing on the moon next year than such a partnership ever being announced.

Verdict

In the usual TR format, so recapping what you've already discussed. Should be an intro, then a 'we liked' section, then 'we disliked' and then a final verdict.

There's no doubt that the iPhone is where Apple's attention is right now, and perhaps rightly so, but the iPod changed the way we listen to music forever, and it's a little bit sad to see its star wane, eclipsed by the iPhone.

The latest iPod touch is under-specced compared to the iPhone 4S - we wish Apple had put Siri, the A5 chip or an upgraded camera into the iPod touch to bring it up to speed, rather than just bring out a new colour, but it's still a great product as it is, and the new iOS 5 features add so many more strings to its bow.

Let's not forget its strengths - as a portable media player it's still second to none. The iPod app is great - making it easy to find and play music on the device, and create great playlists.

It's also great as a little portable movie player for taking on journeys or killing time on the commute to work. And then there's the games angle - as a casual gaming device its second to none, mainly because of the thousands of low-priced or free 3rd party games available on the App Store.

And while the video camera is now looking a little long in the tooth it's still perfectly fine for shooting clips of friends and family to upload to YouTube.

You don't even need to get your PC or Mac involved - you can edit clips right on the device using the built in editing features or by taking things further with the iMovie app, and upload them to YouTube with a few taps. And thanks to iBooks it also works well as an eBook reader that fits in your pocket.

We liked

The white colour gives it a fresh new look. iOS 5 adds some great new features and iCloud connects it to all your other devices effortlessly. Integration with Apple TV is outstanding. It's lightweight, incredibly thin and (if it wasn't such an objectional term to apply to technology) we'd say it was 'sexier' than an iPhone. For playing music, browsing the Internet and casual gaming it's hard to beat.

We disliked

We'd have liked a hardware refresh now that the iPhone 4S has raised the bar. Having to sync through the bloated iTunes software remains a bugbear for some, and restricts what file formats it can play. While the 8GB model is more affordable it's just not enough storage for all the apps you'll want to download and your music collection.

Verdict

There was no way we had room in this review to mention everything the iPod touch does. We haven't even touched on features like Internet browsing, email, maps and the gazillions of apps that totally transform what it's capable of, for example.

We're really excited about a future 5th gen iPod touch, hopefully released at the same time as the iPhone 5 sometime in 2012, but for now the 4th gen is still well worth the money. In fact, it's such a versatile little device that it really does justify its high price tag, and it's not often you can say that with such certainty.

Including, but by no means limited to, the various iPod models, there are currently dozens of portable music players out there – hundreds if you include mobile phones, most of which have some kind of music-playing capability.

Many of them give very decent results, but they're not really Hi-Fi with capital letters: commodity consumer electronics, more like.

True audiophile

The Colorfly is something a bit different. It's a portable music player all right, but it's aimed fair and square at the true audiophile, the individual who owns a carefully selected system of high-quality components and a decent library of recordings.

It is an expensive item as portable music players go, but even at three times the price of an iPod Classic it's far from ruinous when one considers its abilities and possibilities.

The most significant feature is its high-resolution capability: not only CD-format WAV files, but native or losslessly compressed files up to 24-bit/192kHz can be played.

A couple of other details that are likely to appeal are the full-size quarter-inch headphone socket (there's a mini-jack one too) and the real analogue volume control: but what are those phono sockets? They look as if they might be line out, but no, they are digital in and out.

Digital out is obvious, digital in less so, but it turns out the Colorfly can be used as a DAC and also as a sample-rate convertor (upsampler).

Internal chips

The DAC function makes more sense when you realise that the large headphone socket has an output level of 2V with the volume at maximum, so with a suitable adaptor you can use this as a line-level source. That's a high-res source, don't forget and it's an audio device, not a computer, with all the convenience that implies, plus no moving parts, hence no noise.

Memory is 32GB of internal chips, plus a micro-SDHC socket to take cards up to 32GB. At the time of writing, 16GB cards cost about £1 per GB and 1GB is about one hour of 24/96 audio with lossless compression.

Solid walnut

You'll already have noticed from the photos that this is one smart-looking baby. In fact, in the flesh it's simply gorgeous with its solid walnut body. It's bigger than other portables, but still fits in a jacket pocket and feels fabulous in the hand.

Internally it's built with the sort of parts you expect to find in high-end CD players and DACs.

And the sound? There's no doubt that this is a whole different ball-game of portable sound. We took advantage of the higher-than-usual output levels and conducted quite a lot of listening with Grado's fabulous GS1000 headphones, which the Colorfly can drive louder than we'd ever want to listen.

More importantly, it drove with a combination of grip and sweetness that really does make for a high-fidelity experience. You get the kind of detail that would not disgrace a pretty upmarket CD player heard via a good headphone amp.

We did most of our listening with 16-bit/44kHz material because most of the world's recordings come like that, but high-resolution recordings, do show up their advantages through equipment of this calibre.

Astonishingly capable

As a component in a domestic hi-fi set-up, the Colorfly also makes a very good impression. Whether playing its own files or acting as a DAC, it achieves performance results that would not embarrass a full-size component of similar price, or indeed rather higher.

We ran a few basic lab checks too, and performance is technically excellent, with jitter unmeasurable and distortion very low – exceptionally low, in fact, even when driving a headphone load. This is an astonishingly capable little box.

Voice recorders fall into two camps: there's budget digital dictation machines and then there's the broadcast digital recorders used by the likes of the BBC.

The price gulf between the two types has always been quite wide but the Olympus LS-5 bridges that gap by offering genuine broadcast sound that will appeal to podcasters, journalists and musicians.

The all-aluminium body of the LS-5 oozes quality and is surprisingly slender, being little larger than a mobile phone, albeit slightly fatter. The unusual design features a v-shaped pair of stereo mics mounted at the top of the LS-5. These beauties are incredibly sensitive, yet thanks to some very clean pre-amps there's virtually no hiss when recording, even in the most demanding conditions.

Recordings can be stored on the LS-5's internal 2GB of memory or on an SD card. The card slot comes in very handy if you're using the LS-5's maximum quality setting of PCM recording at 96kHz at 24 bits, because it can gobble up the 2GB of memory in under two hours.

The highest quality setting is best used with a very good external mic or even a line-in audio source from a mixing desk or something similar, such as a digital feed.

Using the LS-5 is an absolute breeze. Press the red recording button once to slip into record mode and then press again to start the recording. All the stats you could require show up on the backlit LCD screen, which is a bit small if you need reading glasses.

A Peak meter shows what's going on with the recording level and there's an LED which comes on when the recording level is peaking.

As well as a manual recording level, there's also an automatic mode with a limiter if you can't be bothered to set manual levels. You can monitor recordings using a pair of headphones and when you've finished you can review your sounds using headphones or the small built-in mono speaker, just to make sure things have gone okay.

However, don't expect to use the LS-5 as an MP3 player. Yes, it can play and record in MP3 format, but it's not designed for that sort of thing, so don't expect it to double up as an iPod.

The really great news about the LS-5 is that it is, in nearly all respects, identical to the more expensive LS-11 model. The only cutbacks are the reduced internal memory and lack of a case and remote control. That makes it a compelling purchase.

We liked

The amazing build quality and superb sound that those amazing mics can pick up. Great little extras like a tripod thread and the fact that it uses AA batteries for up to 16 hours of use make it a winner.

We disliked

The small screen can cause problems for those of us without perfect sight, and the handling noise that the LS-5 can occasionally pick up means you need to handle it with care or mount it on a mini tripod for long recordings.

Verdict

If you need to record high-quality sound, whether than be music, interviews or podcasts, the the Olympus LS-5 is the best value digital recorder that money can buy. Sure, you can spend more, but for most people the Olympus LS-5 fits the bill perfectly.

We've reviewed a couple of similar models in the past, most recently the cracking R-09HR from Roland's brand Edirol and despite the different name on the front this seems to be in many ways an evolution of those.

It's relatively compact for a fully-featured portable recorder with built-in mics, but thanks to intelligent layout all the controls are accessible and easy to use. Our one mild dislike on the practical side is that the headphone jack is on the side of the unit rather than on the top, which seems to be asking for trouble with stress on the connector if the unit is in a pocket.

Against that, the display is very clear to read and operation is very quick, with no setup needed beyond setting recording level. Sampling rates up to 96kHz are available in linear PCM, as well as a range of MP3 rates.

Judged both as a player and as a recorder, this unit seems to fall short of the higher standards set by the earlier Edirol devices. The sound is basically all there, not markedly coloured and plausible enough with simple music, but it just doesn't seem to get much beyond that.

Playing tracks which we'd loaded from the computer, we felt that there was an unusually high degree of veiling in the upper midrange and treble, while the bass lacks real impact.

The built-in microphones lack precision and recordings made from the line input compound this, with at times what sounds like 'beating' behind sustained high notes.

Perplexed by this, we ran some basic lab tests and found that distortion is above average and jitter some of the worst we've seen from any digital device.

The Olympus LS-5 may look inpressive, but that's nothing to the way it feels – solid, professional and business-like in the hand. The case is all metal and it sits well in the hand.

Olympus have a history making dictation recorders that are quite capable of recording half-decent music and so it wasn't such a leap to making a recorder that is designed for music duty as well.

Like the Roland R-05, this is actually more a recorder than a player but we have faith in these devices for several reasons, not least their frequent very good sound quality when used as players.

But a decent recorder is a handy device and one like this is perfectly capable of recording from line-level sources, making archive copies of old cassettes and LPs at up to 96kHz sampling rate. That's quite apart from the built-in microphones, suitable for anything from speech to quite serious recording of live music events.

The sound from the built-in mics has good clarity, admirably low noise and a generally neutral tonal balance, though we found the bass a little uneven. The treble is good, though, lacking the slightly brittle quality that many budget microphones seem to have.

Output to headphones is fairly healthy and sounds tonally neutral, but isn't quite as detailed as the Cowon players offer.

The real glory is recording from line inputs, which is frankly excellent and a perfectly valid way of making recordings that can be copied to computer.

The Cowon J3 is a considerably more fancy player than the Cowon i9 and offers much greater capacity (an 8GB model costs £165). What’s more, it includes a micro-SDHC slot so you can add up to a further 32GB of removable storage, a highly appealing prospect from many points of view.

The basic feature set is similar to the i9, in fact, including FM radio and voice recording (at selectable bitrates, in this case), but adds line input recording – though this requires an optional extra cable.

Size strikes us as very well-judged for such a device, with a display large enough to show pictures that can be viewed without a microscope, but overall dimensions that will fit easily in a pocket.

The display is touch-sensitive (though not multi-touch) and operation is particularly pleasant and largely intuitive. Again, computer connection (via a special USB cable to Cowon’s multipurpose docking connector) requires reboot to set up, but is subsequently easy and fuss-free.

The J3 is admirably quick to wake up on switch-on. The main difference from the i9 in sonic terms seems to be that the J3 has rather less output, enough to drive most low-impedance headphones to potentially unsafe levels but not quite enough for satisfying sound from high-impedance cans.

However, it does seem to have a little more subtlety and finesse to it, with greater precision particularly in the bass. Indeed, with good-quality headphones (again, the supplied ones will get you going but aren’t marvellous) the combination of drive, extension and detail in the lower octaves is really very fine.

Only in the highest treble is the sound occasionally a little dry.

Cowon is one of the biggest names after Apple in portable audio and has quite a range of models which are generally well regarded for sound quality.

The Cowon i9 is a diminutive player, about 8mm thick and a little longer but narrower than a credit card, is a budget model, tested here in 8GB guise (though higher capacities are available).

It does a fair range of things, including showing videos and still pictures on the colour display, storing documents, FM radio and even voice recording. It’s reasonably intuitive to operate, though the combination of side-mounted buttons and front-panel touch controls takes a little getting used to.

Connection to a computer is simple enough but, annoyingly, requires a system reboot on first operation. File transfer is most easily done by dragging and dropping using your usual computer file system.

We were impressed by the sound of the i9. We tested it exclusively with CD-format WAV files, of which it can store 14 hours, though lossless FLAC (same quality level) increases that to about 28 hours.

It has a full-bodied and clear sound, best appreciated through more upmarket head/earphones than the supplied ones. With well-produced recordings we were able to hear a lot of detail and some very nice imaging too and there is enough output on tap to drive less sensitive headphones to a satisfying level.

The FM radio is, as usual, iffy, relying on the headphone lead for an antenna, but if signal strength is good the sound’s acceptable.

Apple iPod nano: Overview

Somebody at Apple obviously hates the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" because it has completely redesigned its best-selling iPod, the iPod nano, yet again.

This year's model is half the height of the previous generation and has the same clip-on design as the new iPod shuffle. The big change is that there's no click wheel, just a screen.

In fact, the only physical buttons found on the device are for sleep/wake and adjusting volume. Everything else is controlled by a brand new multi-touch display.

But don't mistake the nano for a scaled down iPod touch; the nano appears to run some version of iOS, Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and iPad operating system, but its a unique severely restricted version compared to the full fat iOS 4 found on the touch. You can't buy and install third party apps, for example, and there are far fewer applications, and no Wi-Fi.

In Apple's iPod line up, the new nano still sits squarely in-between the simplistic iPod shuffle and the all-singing, all-dancing iPod touch,with the traditional iPod classic now marginalised as a device reserved for people who need a lot of storage.

Historically the nano has always represented a good balance between price and features, but this time around we were surprised to find that the UK price has actually risen by quite a bit, with the 16GB version at £159 (up from £138) and the 8GB version at £129 (up from £118).

What's even more surprising is that the ability to play or create videos (one of last year's nano's most touted features) has been removed altogether, making the new nano an audio-only device.

But before we tackle that thorny issue, let's take a look at the intriguing new multi-touch display.

Apple iPod nano: Features

The screen itself is perfectly square, measuring 3.9cm on the diagonal, and a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels. You get four icons on each screen, and from the Home screen you have access to Playlists, Now Playing, Artists and Genius Mixes.

Swipe left and you get another screen containing Radio, Podcasts, Photos and Settings. The next screen contains Songs, Albums, Genres and Composers and finally the last screen boasts Fitness and Clock.

As with the iPhone, pressing and holding an icon makes it wiggle, so you can move apps between screens. You can also change the wallpaper in the Settings app. Good use is made of inertia scrolling when navigating through lists, and you can also press and hold to bring up an alphabet letter to jump straight to it.

Navigating with touchscreen

It's not immediately obvious how you move back up a level in a menu, but a right swipe always takes you back one screen from wherever you are. Tapping and holding anywhere will take you back to the Home screen.

Once you understand all this, you'll find navigating menu items on the new nano is much easier than using a click wheel.

Apps like Playlists, Genius Mixes, Genres, Composers, Podcasts, Albums and Songs are just different ways of accessing your music collection and are much the same as they've always been.

As you'd expect, the Now Playing app displays album artwork for whatever track is currently playing. Tap once to bring up player controls and swipe left from here to access more controls for creating a Genius mix based on the playing song, or scrub through the track.

The Radio app uses the earphones as an antenna and makes good use of multi-touch, enabling you to scroll through FM frequencies, or you can just tap the arrow icon to scan for a station with a good signal. You can also pause live radio for 15 minutes.

The Fitness app isn't the full Nike + iPod Sport Kit experience - instead its just a pedometer, which is a bit disappointing, but you can plug in the Nike + iPod Sport Kit accessory to the 30-pin dock connector port.

Apple iPod nano: Performance

Syncing the new nano with iTunes was a pretty typical experience. People tend to either love or hate iTunes, so don't expect anything different here.

One thing we noticed was that while the nano won't play video, it won't stop you syncing and playing the audio from video podcasts.

The battery life is a healthy 24 hours of audio playback and charging is done through the dock connector.

There's no doubt about it – navigating menu items using multi-touch is a lot easier than using a click wheel. The multi-touch display frees you from the constraints of the click wheel and also feels fast and responsive. It's also bright and colourful, meaning photos really stand out.

In typical Apple fashion it even adds a bit of Ken Burns-style magic to your slideshows. It's little touches like this that continually surprise you (in the best way) about the nano.

The nano's minimal approach to physical buttons means that you can't pause or skip a track without actually looking at its tiny screen, which is a big drawback for any exercising endeavour.

As you can imagine, flailing about jabbing at the screen can only bring frustration on a treadmill, or if you simply want to skip a track while walking down the street without bumping into a lamppost.

It comes as something of a relief then to discover that if you plug in a pair of headphones with a clicker on them (like the ones that come with the iPhone) they function perfectly well with the nano, enabling you to pause and skip tracks without having to look at the screen.

Given this, why on earth has Apple only included the bog-standard clicker-less white iPod earphones in the box?

To make matters worse, two features of the new nano actually require headphones with a clicker to work at all! Plug in some earphones with a built-in microphone and a new app called Voice Memos appears, enabling you to record... yes, you guessed it, voice memos.

VoiceOver is also available as an option for visually impaired users who want to be able to navigate the menu system, but it will also tell you the name of the currently playing song if you click and hold on your headphone's in-line clicker button. Without the clicker button this feature simply isn't available.

It's no secret that Apple's earphones are of dubious audio quality, so we'd always recommend investing in a better pair, but make sure you buy some with an in-line clicker, because without it your nano experience will be seriously hampered.

Apple iPod nano: Verdict

The argument can be made that video on a small screen is a fundamentally flawed idea anyway. Indeed, watching a TV show or music video on a nano was never a comfortable experience, but the simple fun of being able to shoot a quick video of your friends and watch it back immediately was hard to beat.

As a strategy for Apple it makes sense to focus the iPod nano entirely on music and leave video to the more accomplished iPod touch, but the price difference between a low-end iPod touch and the high-end iPod nano is pretty narrow.

We liked:

As we've already mentioned, the multi-touch interface is well designed and accessible. The new clip on the back is also a useful addition, especially if you want to take your new nano to the gym – there's no need to stuff it into a pocket anymore.

Genius playlists are also a stand-out feature, enabling you to quickly and easily create a playlist of similar sounding music, which makes life easy when you can't decide what to listen to.

We disliked:

What the new iPod nano does, it does incredibly well. Putting multi-touch onto a device with a screen that's only 3.9cm on the diagonal, and making it work in a way that feels intuitive and natural, is an incredible achievement. Hats off to Apple for getting this right.

Our only real gripe with the way the nano performs is the lack of controls on the headphones supplied in the box.

Verdict:

Comparing the new nano to last year's model we can't help but feel that we're missing out on something. While Apple has given us multi-touch with one hand, it has taken away the ability to play and record video with the other, while charging is £21 more for the trouble.

A video-capable 8GB iPod touch is only £30 more expensive, and with an iPod touch you get access to the thousands of apps available on Apple's App Store.

If Apple wanted to convince us that taking video playback away from the nano in exchange for multi-touch was a fair deal then it needed to include some sort of nano App Store, or at least bundle a few more apps with the nano beyond the simple Clock, Radio, Photos and Fitness apps you get by default.

As it stands, the new nano performs wonderfully as a device purely for listening to audio, provided you invest in some new headphones, but it feels unnecessarily limited in other areas.

New iPod shuffle 2010: Overview

Apple's third-generation iPod shuffle boasted a radical new design. Instead of locating its controls on the body of the audio player itself, it mounted them on the earbud cable instead.

You navigated through your tracks and playlists through multiple presses of a single button, with track titles, artists and playlist names announced using its innovative new VoiceOver function.

This design was not particularly well received. While VoiceOver was an excellent way of giving song information on a unit without a screen, the button combinations needed to navigate your tracks were less than instinctive.

This new iPod shuffle fourth-generation seeks to remedy this by returning the navigation controls to a control wheel on the iPod, while retaining the VoiceOver feature for information.

The combination of a control wheel and VoiceOver works very well. A single tap on the VoiceOver button atop the device has the feature's robotic voice read out the track name and artist.

Press and hold it to hear the playlist menu, and press twice to be given the battery status (a full charge lasts an agreeable 15 hours). The control wheel, which is 18% bigger than on previous shuffles, handles volume control, play/pause and moving forward and back through your songs and playlists.

The only other control is a switch that can be set to shuffle your tracks, play them in order or turn the iPod off.

Earbuds

As you'd expect from an iDevice, the supplied earbuds are pretty mediocre.

With the shuffle's controls back on the iPod itself you're no longer restricted to replacing them with third-party units offering inline controls. Yet if your favourite set offers this feature, your on-cable controls can still be used for volume, VoiceOver and navigation.

The new iPod shuffle's main body section is crafted from a single piece of aluminium, and features a sturdy clip for attaching to your clothes.

If you buy from the Apple Online Store, you can have it engraved with a personal message. Five colours are available, but bizarrely, only one capacity. For some reason best known to itself, Apple has dropped the 4GB model, leaving this 2GB release as the sole iPod shuffle.

New iPod shuffle 2010: Verdict

Although the new iPod shuffle more closely resembles the second-generation release than its immediate predecessor, it's far from a step backwards.

Instead, it combines the best features offered by the last two models.

We liked:

The combination of VoiceOver for information and a control wheel for navigation makes the new iPod shuffle much easier to use than any previous version.

It looks great too, with a beautifully polished surface and an aluminium unibody design.

We disliked:

The earbuds are down to their usual standard, and what on earth made Apple drop the 4GB version? Were people complaining about having too much storage space?

Not surprisingly, the price is also a bit of a stumbling block. At £39 for 2GB of storage, the new iPod shuffle does not offer much value for money. You can get an 8GB Sansa Clip - which has a screen - for around the same price.

Verdict:

With information served by the VoiceOver button and navigation slaved to the control wheel, the new shuffle is more instinctive than its predecessor and more versatile than the second-gen release.

Apple has taken the best features from two, radically-different models and combined them in the best iPod shuffle to date. However, we had to dock it a star for the insane, ridiculous dropping of the 4GB version and the expensive price tag.

You can put Apple's ownership of the portable music market down to two things: Steve Jobs' marketing nous and (iPod designer) Jonny Ive's understanding that most people value convenience and gadgetry above audio quality. So it's easy to believe that Apple doesn't give much thought to fidelity.

Thankfully, judging by our review of the new Walkman NWZ-A845, Sony thinks differently.

Music player first

For music lovers it's hard to pick fault with Sony's thinnest-ever Walkman. Feature-wise, the NWZ-A845 is bound to appeal to anybody who wants a high-quality portable music player. It has 16GB of memory, an S-Master digital amplifier, Digital Noise Cancelling, EX headphones and an impressively bright 2.8-inch OLED display. And the feature list ends there.

There's no Wi-Fi. No 3G connectivity, no touch screen, gaming or App Store. This is a music player first and a (really good) portable video player second.

Sony makes no attempt to compete with Apple's iPod touch. If you want a mobile internet device and personal media player that plays music occasionally, then by all means shell out a few quid more and buy yourself one of Apple's latest MIDs (mobile internet devices), because the iPod touch is a wonderful pocket computer.

But if you want music on the go, then we would definitely urge you to consider a new Walkman instead. What it lacks in features it more than makes up for in audio (and video) quality.

No, no, nano!

The NWZ-A845 is 7.2mm thin and it's a lovely looking, beautifully crafted bit of kit. Unlike the featherweight and plasticky iPod nano, it feels reliably solid and weighty.

Priced at £149, the NWZ-A845 will be competing with Apple's slightly cheaper 16GB nano. The fact is, that those users that still rely on iTunes for purchasing and organising their music libraries are always going to plump for an Apple device over anything else.

Sony doesn't have that software eco-system that is Apple's bread-and-butter. Some users have also been quick to dismiss the design of Sony's NWZ-A845 as 'a bit too 1990s.' Which, admittedly it is, unashamedly. No bad thing, mind, especially as the interface is simple, quick and easy to use.

Favourite cans

The first thing any audiophile will notice, is that Sony's noise-cancelling in-ear EX headphones that accompany the NWZ-A845 are surprisingly good. So good, in fact, that you won't forget them in a hurry.

They are unlikely to be quite as good as your favourite cans – and they were certainly not as good as the custom-moulded ACS T2s we used to compare and contrast the new Walkman with Apple's iPod – but they are a country mile better than any other 'bundled' headphones we've tested.

Sony informs us that the EX earphones are worth around £70 on their own, which makes the NWZ-A845's £149 price tag seem even more reasonable. If you are travelling on a bus, train or plane then noise can be a major set-back. But not with Sony's 'Advanced Artificial Intelligent Noise Cancelling' technology, which automatically monitors your surroundings and successfully manages to cut out a considerable amount of the ambient interference.

iTunes

With a battery-life of up to 29 hours and iPod-beating sound quality, the latest Sony Walkman is truly a contender for our favourite personal digital audio player. Of course, Apple has the benefit of the iTunes eco-system, which most people are going to be happy to continue to use alongside their iPod touch or nano.

However, for the discerning audiophile, once you pit Sony's machine alongside any Apple device, the difference in audio quality is immediately apparent. Whether you are listening to quiet folky guitar tunes or bass-heavy hip hop, this Sony Walkman and its bundled EX noise-cancelling earphones deliver a surprisingly clear sound.