This tiny player has a USB connector like a standard flash drive, but the glossy case, non-slip rubber back and the OLED display under the shiny front make it look far more stylish.

It's practical too. There's a hole on the back for a lanyard - at a little under an ounce, you could practically use it as a key fob - and a hold button on the back, along with a volume control. Play/pause is a big button on the front, and there's also a small Home button for navigating your music.

The forward and back buttons on the side are raised, so it's easy to skip tracks or fast forward and rewind without even looking at the player. Alternately, you can pick and choose what you want to hear. Press Home once and it swaps you between changing tracks and changing from one album to another. Press and hold to get the menu where you can swap shuffle modes; select a playlist; browse to a particular album, artist or song; tune the radio; turn on the stopwatch; or change the playback and display settings.

The normal listing gives you track and artist information, along with the battery gauge and play mode, and then turns the display off to save power. If you prefer, you can see the file properties (like the bitrate and file format) after the track name, or have the display turn into a clock or an animation. If you're left-handed, you can even turn the display upside down so the forward and back buttons are oriented the right way for you. The display only shows one or two lines of information, but it's beautifully crisp and clear. The built-in connector makes the NW-E003 look like a flash drive but it only works like one if you want to store files on it.

The biggest drawback to this player is the fact that you can't use Windows Explorer or iTunes or Windows Media Player to get your music onto the player; you have to use Sony's SonicStage software. That means importing your existing library into the software, which is far from friendly to use; it doesn't even understand special folders in Windows like My Documents.

The only advantage of SonicStage is that it can convert music to Sony's space-saving ATRAC format - this is the basis of MiniDisc and gives you excellent quality and very small files, so you'll fit much more onto the player. Think of it as a long-term commitment though: files converted from MP3 or WMA won't sound that good, because you're going from one compressed format to another. Save it for tracks you rip from CD or buy from Sony's online store.

You won't have to keep running back frequently to your PC to charge up, and you hardly need the battery gauge. With ATRAC3 files, Sony claims 28 hours of battery life, and you get nearly that much with WMA and MP3 files too. If you're in a hurry, just three minutes plugged in gives you three to four hours of battery life (a full charge takes two hours).

Sound is as good as you'd expect from Sony: music is crisp and clear, but not overly bright. The supplied earbuds don't have any frills, but they're more comfortable than many sets and they don't let down when it comes to sound. Like the case, controls, display and everything about this player (except SonicStage), they're effective rather than flashy.