The iRiver X20 offers good sound quality and pretty much every feature in the book: voice and line-in recording ; an FM radio ; photo and video support ; a user-replaceable battery ; a microSD card expansion slot ; and dual external speakers. It ...

The X20 is bulky for a flash player, and the scroll ring is a little too small for comfort. The lack of accelerated scrolling is a hassle for long song and artist lists. No support for music subscription

The iRiver X20 MP3 player is a great option for users who value lots of features over an ultracompact design.

The Blue Raven MediaMate 7000 is an affordable PVP with a giant screen, built-in speakers, replaceable battery, above-average sound quality, built-in DVR, and support for a wide spectrum of video file formats.

MediaMate is one of the bulkiest PVP devices we've seen. Its resolution is grainy, the screen brightness is not adjustable, and the button layout is a little awkward. Files must be added using drag-and-drop transfer, with no support for DRM-protected ...

Blue Raven's MediaMate is a Texas-size product with a down-to-earth price. Just remember, bigger isn't always better.

Cute design.

Everything else.

Don't bother.

The RCA Pearl offers surprisingly good sound quality and is very inexpensive. It also includes some useful extras, such as an FM tuner and microSD card expansion slot, and there's a built-in USB interface.

The Pearl is a bit of a bear to use, and the bulbous battery compartment can make it take up more than one USB port. It also takes disposable batteries, which will need constant replacing. The headphone jack is awkwardly placed.

If you're looking for a better-sounding alternative to the Sansa Express, the RCA Pearl does the trick--but be prepared to deal with a funky user interface and disposable batteries.

The RCA Jet sounds good, is inexpensive, and offers an FM tuner and stopwatch. The player features a splash-proof design and includes sporty clip-on earphones, an armband, and a wristband.

The RCA Jet's color scheme may not appeal to everyone. Also, the control pad is stiff, the buttons are a bit unresponsive, and the menu structure is funky.

If you're looking for an inexpensive MP3 player for the gym, the RCA Jet--FM tuner, armband, stopwatch, and all--is a solid choice, but the interface will take some getting used to.

The Sony NW-S705F Walkman is a beautiful player that offers active noise-cancellation, FM radio, long-haul battery life, and high quality earphones.

If you lose Sony's earphones, you'll lose the NW-S705F's noise-canceling feature as well. Transferring music requires Sony's SonicStage software and a lot of patience.

Despite its small capacity, the Sony NW-S705F delivers a lot of bang for the buck with ahead-of-its-time noise-cancellation and a 50-hour battery life. If you can tolerate Sony's software long enough to load your favorite music, you won't be ...

The Mach Speed Trio TV5 offers an incredible list of features at a price that's too good to be true.

Nearly every one of the TV5's features is handicapped in some profound way. Sound quality and battery life are poor and the internal memory is only 512MB.

The Mach Speed Trio TV5 is proof that sometimes a product can be less than the sum of its parts.

The Creative Zen Stone is an exceptional bargain, and it comes in a choice of six colors. It offers good sound quality, is easy to use, and includes a standard mini-USB port for syncing and charging. It supports Audible files and has a Skip Folder ...

The Creative Zen Stone has no screen, no extra features, and no built-in clip like that of the iPod Shuffle. The rated battery life is unimpressive.

The Creative Zen Stone is a fantastic choice as a secondary MP3 player or for first timers on a budget who want a simple, great-sounding device with limited features and a bargain basement price tag.

The next generation iRiver Clix is even sleeker and slimmer than its predecessor, but offers the same unique and intuitive interface and stellar audio quality. This player comes packed with extras such as an FM radio ; a voice recorder ; an alarm ...

There's no cradle or line-in recording options for the new Clix yet, and iRiver doesn't offer an easy way to get video content for the device

The iRiver Clix offers the perfect blend of hot design, desirable features, and stellar sound quality. If you're looking for an alternative to the iPod Nano, this device should top the list.

The iRiver S10 features a cute, wearable design with an innovative, clickable screen ; the bright OLED screen makes for easy navigation. The player includes nice extras such as an FM tuner, voice recorder, and alarm clock. It also plays OGG files and ...

The iRiver S10 is expensive, suffers from an unimpressive battery life, and doesn't support DRM-protected music. Oddly, it doesn't support JPEG photos--only BMP. It may be too tiny for some users

The undeniably cute iRiver S10 sounds great and is packed with features, but its lofty price tag and paltry battery life might be a deterrent for some users.