The functionality of the Zeppelin is basic, given the price of the system

Looks great ; Can fill a big room with surprisingly loud, extremely well-separated sound ; A very well put together iPod package indeed

Lacking in dynamic range (at any volume) ; iPod controls are too simplistic for an expensive dock-fi

Led Zep puns are a cheap shot here, but one that's impossible to resist. This is no Black Dog and it's good for Rock and Roll, but there remains a Communication Breakdown between the Zeppelin and hi-fi

The touchscreen allows you to scroll through media without having to use the rocker switches on the side

Excellent battery life ; Great screen ; User-friendly menus

Gets dirty quite easily

The white plastic side buttons get grubby quickly, and it's not exactly a pocket-sized PMP. The contrast could be better

Clearly influenced by Archos's more advanced PMPs, the VP6200 boasts such luxuries as line in NTSC/PAL video and audio recording, external AV output, FM tuner and voice-recorder. And there's an in-built camera capable of both stills and moving video.

Lots of features built-in ; fair performance

Some playback glitches ; insensitive tuner

In summary, the VP6200 tries to do too much for the money and perhaps suffers as a result

It's a shame that the controls couldn't have been much bigger

Very cheap ; Large screen

Too much wasted space ; A shameless iPod rip-off

Usefully, there's an application to check for firmware updates and fix database errors on it, and another by video experts Arcsoft to handle re-encode. This doesn't offer at lot of options, but it's pretty fast and reliable, and offers a high-quality ...

About the same size as a pocket radio of yesteryear,the GPDR40 manages to cram in a generous 40GB of storage capacity and a 3.6in 4:3 TFT LCD screen.

The underlying concept may be an excellent one,but the GPDR40 tries to do too many things for too little money and it shows. Hopefully,many of these issues can be addressed via a firmware 'fix'

Is the Apple iPod touch more than just an iPhone wannabe?

Multi-touch interface is a blast ; It's the first true video iPod ; Decent sound and picture quality ; Incredibly slim and light

The iPod touch is too similar to the iPhone ; Contrast and viewing angle are average ; Not enough storage for some ; Feels like a rush job

As is stands, the iPod touch is actually a very good audio / video player that bears an unhealthy similarity to one of the most over-hyped products of the year. Maybe the iPod touch 2.0 will be more distinctive

The unit's 'D-click' control system borders on genius

Operating system ; Great sound quality ; Ingenious control system

Small screen ; Block noise

Not only does the Clix make great use of a burgeoning display technology, but it also boasts some unusual features, a terrific control system and decent sound quality

The Sony Walkman NW-A829 may be small, but it packs 16GB of storage - enough for over 10,000 songs

Great headphones Sounds better than the iPod Small and slim with decent build quality Bluetooth - if that's your bag

Counter-intuitive controls Iffy user interface Screen is too small for watching anything other than short clips No Bluetooth headphones It still can't beat the iPod

It's no accident either that the NW-A829 also shares stylistic queues with Sony Ericsson mobile phones - a familiar combination of gloss black metal, plastic, glass and silver piping that echoes the Sony Ericsson K series, for example

The Zen is the first of Creative's new batch of MP3 players

Competitive price ; Interface is great ; DivX support ; iTunes AAC support

It's plastic, not aluminium

A pretty comprehensive little player, then. It won't be enough to convince Apple fans to swap out their iPod nanos. But for those people who like to stay away from the iPod economy and go for something different, the Creative Zen is a great choice

The Micro has a front-mounted touch scroll pad

Attractive looks

Difficult controls

In terms of functionality the Micro doesn't have much more than the bigger Zen Xtras. It does have an FM radio and a voice recorder option, both of which work well. The microphone is particularly good