Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg is one of the first to see, touch and feel an iPod nano -- Apple's newest digital media device with color display, and flash-based storage of up to 1,000 songs. His verdict: "I am smitten" and it "has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested."

Mr. Mossberg reported (online subscription required) he has been testing a model for a few days and that the newest handheld music player "exceeds Apple's performance claims."

The longtime WSJ technology reviewer said the nano is not only small, but "stunningly skinny" at 0.26 inches, or "about the thickness of five credit cards stacked on top of one another."

In tests, Mr. Mossberg said "the nano's battery lasted a bit longer than Apple claims (of 14 hours) -- 14 hours and 18 minutes. And I was easily able to pack around 1,200 songs, plus a couple dozen photos, into the US$249 (4 gigabyte) model.

"I found no significant flaws or downsides," he wrote. "The only quirks are that the headphone jack is on the bottom, because there isn't room for it on the top; and to make room for the jack, the standard iPod connector port that hooks up to many accessories has been placed off-center. But neither of these oddities matters much. In fact, the bottom-mounted headphone jack makes the optional lanyard earbuds possible, and keeps the screen oriented properly when you're wearing them."

Although knowing full well that the nano uses flash-memory to store audio and not a mechanical hard drive like the standard iPod, Mr. Mossberg tested its abilities by dropping it several times from a height of some three feet, only to find "it didn't miss a beat."

Mr. Mossberg mentioned Apple's new ROKR mobile phone with iTunes capability, but said he believed Apple "clearly considers the new iPod nano a much bigger deal for now. In fact, it hopes that the nano's slender size and ample capacity will blunt the belief that people don't want to carry a separate phone and music player."

His conclusion: "There are dozens of small, flash-based music players, but I haven't seen any that combine the nano's size and features...All I can say is: It sure is small and it sure is cool."