Review: Veho VMP-008 portable audio player

The VMP-008 music player, from new distributor Veho (we reviewed the company's VFS-001 film scanner recently) is an impressively tiny device that includes 1GB of storage space.

That's unremarkable in the context of the latest 160GB iPod, but this device is so small that you could swallow it and hardly feel it.

In fact, the player is shaped like a small lozenge and has no obvious buttons.

Instead there are two touch-sensitive pads on one side. These control both volume and playback (you hold them down for volume and brush them to change track back or forth).

It includes a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (and a pair of OK earphones), on a wire that doubles as a way to hang the player around your neck (it's designed for runners and sports players).

Sound quality is very good, with plenty of life both in the treble and bass ranges. Our only qualm is that there's no random or shuffle mode, so with no screen you're limited to listening to the tracks in the order they were copied. Other than that, £50 for the smallest portable music player we've ever seen is a good deal.

Vista compatibility: Yes