The player really is small and light: its barely the size of a pack of cards and weighs only a couple of ounces so it will fit almost anywhere. If you want to keep it in your pocket, the main controls are duplicated on a clip-on remote control on the wire of the little in-ear headphones. These give a fair sound that picks up most of the details in the music. If you want to upgrade the headphones, you can get a better sound, but youll lose the handy remote controls.

If you run out of music to listen to--the included 32 MB of memory will only give you half-an-hour of good quality music at 128 kbps--you can either add a separately available 64 MB SmartMedia card, or you can tune in to the FM radio. Tuning into a station with the player controls is a little haphazard but you can use the MPMan Manager software to preset a station by giving the name and frequency--as well as transferring MP3 files to the player, uploading voice recordings youve made on the player (in WAV format) and making a list of notes and telephone numbers to store on the player for reference. You have to type the numbers in by hand though: you cant import them from an address book.