Sony NW-E205 MP3 player

Sony cooks up a tasty bean feast.

With help from its mammoth 50 hours' battery life, this jelly bean-inspired gem is trying to crack the MP3 conker out of Apple's rock-solid grasp.

Sound quality through the supplied earphones is very good and we managed to get almost all the quoted 50 hours of playback from the battery. Quick charging the device by plugging it into your PC for just three minutes gives another three hours of juice.

The SonicStage PC application is used to zip MP3s or ATRAC files onto the Walkman. Non-protected WMA tracks can be converted first. The latest version still trails iTunes for useability, but it's quick - transferring an average track to the player takes about five seconds.

This is a 512MB flash-memory model, with a 1GB version also available for £100. It comes in four colours, each- with matching 'phones, and there's a neat slide cover that hides a pop-out USB plug for easy connectivity.

Unfortunately, navigating through tracks is less than a treat - there's a small monochrome display, plus a jog button that is unresponsive and too small. Fiddly controls aside, this is a funky player with an amazing battery.