Apple iPod nano (2012)

The video nano is back! Apple did a smart thing replacing the not-so-beloved "watch-style" iPod nano with a slim, multicolored plaything in a range of attractive colors.

All of Apple's new products share several design cues, most notably the use of soft, warm, colorful anodized aluminum on the back.

The cute li'l nano is almost credit card-slim at 5.4mm, with a colorful metal housing that wraps around the edges, like a baby Nokia Lumia smartphone.

The hardware volume rocker on the side was easy to find with my fingers.

As before, the nano runs on a stripped-down OS that looks a little like iOS, but doesn't run apps.

There's a hardware home button on the front, just like an iPhone. I actually made a bunch of jokes about it being a baby iPod touch when I saw the two of them together on a table.

At $149, the nano isn't the cheapest media player out there by a long shot, and its price isn't much lower than the much more functional $199 iPod touch.

The most surprising new option is the built-in pedometer, which launches when you click on a Nike+ icon.

The front of the device is a bright, clear 2.5-inch, 240-by-432-pixel screen.

I played some videos on it and they looked sharp, although obviously it's well short of high definition (and doesn't need to be so at that size.)