For the last few years, Creative has played catchup to iRiver, Rio and Apple. Its players have felt as cheap as they were, and despite a huge product catalogue, only the Zen Micro seemed worth a look. Now, after years of competition, Apple looks set to get a run for its money.

But it's not only Creative that lost its hindering baggage. Last month we saw a Sony notebook that put aside its clunky, proprietary media centre applications and embraced the popular, third-party software Windows Media Center Edition for the first time. Well, the revolution has encompassed Sony's otherwise excellent MP3 players - gone is the infuriating reliance on the unpopular ATRAC format. This audio player supports Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Player 10 (WMP) under the relaunched and much-loved banner of 'Walkman'. Finally the one company that can challenge Apple's iPod and iTunes dominance has woken up to itself. And so we have two gorgeous looking audio players that, unlike Apple, support the popular WMA format (note that the Walkman doesn't support DRM -you can't play WMA files purchased from online stores).

The Walkman doesn't stray much further, though: it's a digital audio player and nothing else. The violet, lozenge-shaped device looks gorgeous (it's also available in silver) and feels very well built -- if a little heavy at 182g. The display is a 37mm square mono panel with lettering appearing in light blue. Control is via a directional button and two other buttons, both of which pulse white when in use. Without video, pictures and other gimmicks to fuss about, the Walkman simply gets on with the job at hand - playing music - which it does very well. The supplied headphones sound good and come with an extension cable should you find them a little short. There's a volume jog switch on the side and a useful hold button on the top. While the Connect transfer software is an improvement on previous showings, we recommend using it with the vastly superior Windows Media Player 10.

At the top left is a 'Link' button (sensibly flush with the sides to avoid accidental pressing) which cues up tracks from the same genre to what's playing - nice if you hit a track that matches your mood - but it requires your music library to be well-tagged.

Options on the nine-icon menu are all easily navigable and offer simple and clear options as to how your music played and in what order - including star rating sorting, music released in a particular year, and playlists. There's also the bookmark function and you can use it as a portable hard disk to transport files. But the best thing about it is the battery life - it shuffled MP3s in our test for 30 hours - double that of the iPod.

The Vision:M is a very different kettle of fish. It looks almost as good as an iPod with its glossy black front (also available in green, red, blue and white) complementing its rippled matte white back. On turning it on you're greeted with a stunning 51mm x 40mm, 262,144 colour screen (the iPod supports only 65,000). Navigation uses a vertical trackpad, which also rocks left or right. Four other buttons operate by clicking on each corner of the lower part of the player. While neither player can match Apple for scrolling through large track lists, we found navigation round the Vision:M's myriad of features a breeze after getting used to the buttons.

Features include a recordable FM radio, voice recorder, picture viewer, Outlook task, contact and calendar synchronisation and video player. But unlike Apple's insistence on playing Apple format video, Creative supports almost every Internet-friendly format available: you'll be able to watch much of what you already have on your PC and not just expensive clips from iTunes. The high definition screen makes them look great too. In practice though, many of our test clips wouldn't play with excessive bit rates and resolutions the frequent cause.

It's supplied with a cheap pouch and, usefully, some travel plug adapters. However, an expansion pack is required to connect charger, USB and (optional) AV out cable. In tandem with Windows Media Player 10, it worked very well. Like the Walkman it managed very fast transfer times of under two seconds per song. It also plays WMA-DRM music bought from online stores. It played music and video for an iPod matching 17 hours and four hours respectively before the battery ran out. The only weakness is the mediocre headphones.

We feared that Apple's competitors had given up, but here are two outstanding players. The Walkman is expensive but if you only want music it's the best around. The Vision:M does everything you could want from a portable media player and does it very well at a good price. Both are recommended but the Vision:M is our pick of the two. iPod users are further warned off buying Apple's proprietary format iTunes, as they won't play on what, could very well be, your next music player.

LABS VERDICT
Two sensational players that will finally give Apple a serious run for its money.

SCORES
Creative - 5/6

Sony 5/6