Sony NWZ-S544

Sony’s NWZ-S544 music player, with 8GB of memory, comes in at roughly £120 - Sony does not publish recommended retail prices so it pays to shop around.

It is priced to compete with Apple’s iPod Nano though its feature list marks it out as being quite different.

Measuring around 10x5 cm and only one cm thick, it's available in black and red colours.

The Walkman has a 2.4in widescreen display, which is slightly bigger than the one on its predecessor the S639F, a well-laid out control pad that looks like Mickey Mouse’s head in silhouette, side-mounted volume and output controls and a lock to stop buttons being accidentally pressed while it's in your pocket.

A standard headphone socket allows earphones to be plugged in but there is an internal speaker as well as an internal microphone that allows it to be used as a voice recorder.

Annoyingly, the socket used to connect the device to a PC is proprietary, which means replacing the cable could be expensive if you lose it.

Unusually, the earphones that came with the S544 provided superb sound quality, but the internal speakers were not so impressive. They did a reasonable job, if not particularly impressive, when we tried to increase the bass or volume though.

The programmable equaliser is useful and has presets for a range of musical genres, while the variable bass boost sounded natural. An FM radio receiver is also included - it's possible to record programmes directly on the S544 - and the voice recording was impressive given how small the microphone is.

The interface lacks Apple’s sparkle but was easy to figure out. Sony’s Content Transfer software is supplied as a program on the player itself – it can be installed when you plug the player into a computer – and can handle file management and transferring music and video to the player.

It can convert some video file types to a suitable format (MPEG-4) for the player’s bright, clear screen, but this is a lengthy process if you do not already have videos at the right resolution). Photos and music were much more easy to deal with, and most major formats are supported.

Annoyingly, Sony's Sensme feature, which automatically generates playlists, is not available on the S544 even though it was on its predecessor.

However, the NWZ-S544's battery life makes up for this: a two-and-a-half hour charge gives 40 hours of music playback when using headphones, which is more than its competitors.