Genius has a glossy product catalogue filled with women looking more excited than anyone in their right mind should be about any piece of technology. However, their MP3-DJ manages to do everything it says on the box without being particularly memorable.

The MP3-DJ is not stylish, it's not cool, it doesn't dazzle and amaze and it isn't unusually big or small. But it is a solid and sturdy little MP3 player with no concessions made to style or size; the goal was clearly to make everything as accessible, intuitive and as portable as we've come to expect from any flash memory MP3 player.

Weighing in at 1 GB, it's a heavyweight among non-hard disk MP3 players. Its sheer size is kept from becoming frustrating by a simple navigation system, which allows the addition of files using drag and drop, and simple folder browsing on the device itself. These might not seem too important, but for the size and asking price it's nice to see some user friendly features.

The machine itself is a little bigger than we've come to expect from MP3 players smaller than 4 GB, the majority of this bulk being the battery housing, designed to fit one AAA battery. A 10 hour battery life could easily be the single biggest factor steering people away from this device, worse still when the battery in question isn't an on-board rechargeable lithium ion battery. On the go we were hard pressed to get 10 hours from the battery when listening at a reasonable volume. More frustrating still, the backlight gives up the ghost long before the battery dies, so our last few tracks were spent blindly groping for music in the darkness.

As a saving grace, the MP3-DJ comes packed with features. On top of the ability to play MP3 and WMA formats, it has the now obligatory FM tuner, though we found it cumbersome to tune. It also has a microphone, which we found perfectly acceptable, considering the generally poor quality of microphones in MP3 players.

All of this leaves sound to be the deciding factor, and on sound we'll have to give a resounding vote against the MP3-DJ for anyone with any depth of interest in music. Like many MP3 players, the in-box earphones are reasonable, but best ditched as soon as possible if you have any interest in bass. On connecting another set of earphones, however, we discovered a low static fuzz on all music from the player. Possibly due to the headphone jack's proximity to the battery, the hum irked us to no end. We went so far as to check the same files on another player... no, the MP3-DJ just doesn't have it in the sound stakes.

It's no complete loss for Genius. All of the problems we found were niggling issues that became more frustrating over time. The MP3-DJ would certainly make a great option for someone looking for something to get through the morning train journey to work, but for extended listening, the sound quality and battery life were a real letdown.