Stacks of potential, but current hardware is underwhelming and the client software a mess.

Sexy, isn’t it? And it might just knock Apple’s iPod Nano off its pedestal.

Well, the fact that the speakers reproduced sound from the iPod at all has to count for something.

Microsoft prepares to take on the portable music player industry's heavyweight: Apple. Would you believe it?

It doesn’t look any different to the old iPod, but that doesn’t mean Apple hasn’t done anything to it.

The iPod Nano has been refined, and its larger capacity and sleek styling makes it more appealing than ever.

Few people were expecting an iPod like this to arrive so soon after the iPod Shuffle.

Hello nano. Won't you be mine? Nano is the sexiest bright shiny object we've seen for a good while.

As far as many people are concerned there's only one MP3 player. Love it or hate it, the iPod has entered the public consciousness and become an icon. So it's no surprise that everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon.

A funky set of  Bluetooth headphones. Connect to a variety of audio sources or use the built in MP3 player.

Taking over on the innovation and user friendliness from where the original iPod left off, the iPod Mini features similar design to the original, but is in every regard smaller.

The SlimX imp-550, from iRiver left us speechless in terms of the quality and design of this MP3 CD Player/FM tuner. Being possibly the thinnest CD/MP3 player on the market, this is also one of the more feature-packed.

Features voice recording and an FM tuner. The device can be fiddly to operate, and the LCD screen doesn't display any track information other than the title. There is no playlist management, and no directory structure for your tracks. Voice recording allows the sampling rate to be set up to 48,000Hz.

There is little to distinguish this from the EXP322, with the exception of a wired remote for basic track controls and the ability to play games on the LCD screen similar to black and white LCD mobile phone gaming. This model also buffers up to 420 seconds at 128Kb/s, providing a more exotic anti-skip protection than the 100 seconds of the EXP322.

The JNC has a reasonable range of features, including FM radio and voice recording, although no capacity for storage expansion. It can be also used as removable storage, for any file type. The software includes a simple tool to format the device, a firmware upgrade utility and RealOne Player Gold. There is no support for playlists, however, unless created within the player itself.

This player has its own speaker which would be handy for instant playback of voice recordings. There is 128MB storage on board, with a MMC card slot, located in the battery compartment. The headphones clip over your ear, and are quite comfortable to wear.

Well kitted out with a vast array of accessories, Philips' offering to the MP3 marketplace is the EXP213 CD MP3 player.

The Creative CD-MP3 M100 is an Mp3-CD and CD-player that supports MP3 and WMA formats, audio CDs, and CD-R and CD-RW discs.

Super portability is definitely the way of the future and Rome's Ultrasm combined MP3/voice recorder takes a step in that direction.