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.

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.

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.

For the price, this unit doesn't have a lot going for it. It is clumsy to operate, and the display is too small. It has a slot for a Memory Stick, although a 'MagicGate' adaptor is required.

As the iPod continues to be enhanced, and storage capacity increased, we had a look at the latest from Apple.

A bog standard CD/MP3 player, with a minimal feature set. Apart from the typical controls such as resume, shuffle, repeat and so on, this player also has 'Digital Dynamic Bass Boost' which provides minimal strengthening of the bass signal.

The Targa TMU-401 MP3 player, whilst a little light in on-board storage, outperformed devices with larger storage capacities.

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.

Priced at the budget end of the MP3 Player market, this device doesn't perform too badly. Sound quality is acceptable, considering the price, and the preset EQs come in handy. The bass is reasonably full, the high tones are clean and not harsh, although the mid-range was a little empty, with just a hint of background hiss at higher volumes.

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 20-30GB Nomad Jukebox Zen NX is Creative's latest hard disk-based MP3/WMA player; an evolution of predecessor, the Zen. The model we reviewed was a 20GB unit, which equates to around 667 hours of 64Kbps WMA encoding, or 333 hours of 128Kbps MP3 encoding.

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.

Compact form factor and functionality are the two most important features when determining an audio player's portability.

The M-ANY Dual-Play is a digital audio player in the form of a cassette-tape, supporting MP3, WMA and Audio book formats.

Compact, rugged and at a mere 45g (without batteries), the Philips psa[128max MP3 player, badged 'Nike', is geared towards consumers who want to get physical with good sound.