Sony Walkman NWZ-B152F

This music player looks like a USB memory key with buttons and a screen.

It's very small but the design is a hindrance, especially when it comes to navigating through the menus on the screen. Unlike the Archos 18, the Walkman's screen isn't large enough to show photos or video.

With only 2GB of storage space and bloated menus this player was both confusing and underwhelming.

It looked nice enough – we reviewed the red version but it is also available in pink, blue and black. The main control for playback is a large wheel with a play/pause button in the centre. Turning the wheel makes it click back and forth between menu options.

However, this was counterintuitive. When scrolling through some menus a clockwise turn moved us down in the list, while in other menus the same clockwise turn moved up the list. These players are often used by people doing exercise so the lack of a clip to attach the Walkman to clothing when out running is also an oversight.

Sound through the supplied headphones was tinny, with particularly poor bass response. This problem was easily remedied using the player's Bass mode, but this made some songs sound distorted. The headphones themselves were fine to wear, though, and far more comfortable than those supplied with current versions of Apple's iPod. The FM Radio was also good – tuning was simple and reception was fine on most stations we tried.

Another nice feature is recording, which turns the Walkman into a dictation device. There is a physical button to stop or start recording: press this and the NWZ-B152F immediately starts recording in decent quality.

A USB plug is built in so no cables are needed to connect to a PC, but the plug's covering cap was flimsy.

There is no need for software: the player appears as a disk in Windows and tracks can be added or removed by dragging and dropping them into the folders that appear, though transfer speeds were slow.

It's cheap but this Walkman isn't easy to use. The Philips Gogear 4GB is much better value.