Creative Zen Sleek

If you're not swayed by the must-have lure of an iPod there are many other perfectly good digital music players around. On the whole, they are more versatile, better specified and cheaper. The only thing you'll miss out on is the irresistible design of Apple products.

The Zen Sleek is Creative's latest attempt to knock the iPod off its position as the best-selling portable music player and is aimed squarely against the 20Gb iPod.

It's about the same size and weight and can hold about the same number of MP3s. However, because the Zen Sleek supports WMA, music files can be encoded at higher bit-rates while achieving the same sound quality.

This reduces file sizes and means that more music can be squeezed onto the player. It also has a better battery life than the iPod, lasting around eight hours before needing a charge.

The large blue screen is clear and the buttons are easily navigable with one hand. The vertical scroll pad is a little sensitive and doesn't work as well as the iPod's circular scroll wheel but it certainly isn't unusable.

Music is transferred from a computer using Creative's propriety software, the Zen Sleek Media Explorer. It's not as intuitive as iTunes but provides most of the same functionality. Where it did fall down in our tests was the transfer speed: it's noticeably slower than iTunes, taking around 25 per cent longer to transfer each tune.

It will support protected WMA files, though, which will appeal to customers of the Napster To Go service and other legal music download sites. Sound quality is very good and the volume seems much louder than the iPod's. The supplied headphones are OK, but we'd recommend replacing them if you want better audio quality.

Other features include a built-in FM radio and a voice recorder. It can't store or display photos but it costs £200, just £21 more than the 4Gb iPod Nano.

If you're not concerned about having an iPod, the Zen Sleek is a great alternative that supports a wider range of audio files and has FM radio.