For me the advantage of an MP3 player is not being able to select the tracks I want to carry around with me, or the fact that I can share them with mates, or even the prospect of free choons. It's the fact that you can theoretically shake the thing around like a pneumatic drill crossed with a cheerleader and it won't skip. There are absolutely no moving parts; just flash memory.

As such this is a superb bit of kit. I actually ended up with it on impulse. I was in town one day with money burning a hole in my pocket and the shops about 10 minutes from closing, and desperate to buy a new toy. Aha, I thought, as I passed Dixons, an MP3 player, why not! So I ran to WHSmiths, read the first review I could find in a magazine, ran back to Dixons and bought the one that got the best review. Stupid way to shop, but I fell very lucky.

The sound quality is great (but don't use the headphones that come free with it - no matter how much they supposedly cost if you buy them separately). I really haven't got any complaints at all, and I'm very fussy - I've been known to return Walkmans simply on the grounds that I didn't like their sound. And the no-skip thing is really true. At last something I can actually run with which simply doesn't skip at all!

This is why I can't understand the complaints that magazines seem to be levelling at this first generation of players now. Suddenly they're all complaining about the lack of memory (32MB seemed to be about standard, 64 if you were very lucky - the Philex has 32 but can be expanded), and praising the new generation of jukebox players, with built-in 6GB hard-drives. But the point is, these new players introduce the moving parts again. OK, they probably still play from flash memory, and load it from the hard drive, but there's no way you can give a hard-drive the beating you can give my little Philex. You'd simply destroy it.

The software for the Philex
installs easily on your PC, although I'm not so sure about the software for the voice-recording feature. The instruction manual described two sets of drivers and how to install them, in quite a lengthy procedure, but only one set were on the disc. As it happens I don't use the voice recorder anyway - I think it's just a gimmick, but if it would be an important gimmick for you then check.

So if you were waiting for a completely no-skip music player, then I'd say the Philex was a great bargain - top notch quality at not quite the top prices. If you don't want to be able to jog with the thing, but would like 18 hours of music in your pocket then it's definitely not for you.