Although I am fairly interested in technology, I do tend to be swayed by the design and appearance of a product before I have even looked at what it is capable of and its specifications. I'd had my shiny pink MP3 player for around two years and loved it dearly but when I went out running over Christmas, I lost it in the snow!! Alas, it was time to choose a new one.

This time I was determined to be a little bit more open minded about my purchase than just choosing the prettiest pink one. The brand of my previous MP3 player was Sony and like I said, I'd had it for two years without a single problem so I went straight to their website to find a replacement.

I couldn't believe how much things had progressed in two years and the product I chose was so much more than just an MP3 player. After some deliberation, I ended up choosing one from the E series, the E453 Walkman Video MP3 player, the NWZ-E453 model which was released last year. And of course I chose the beautiful hot pink one. The other colours available were black, red, blue and green which were all equally striking but it was no contest for me!

My new MP3 player closely resembles a little mobile phone. It has a width of 44.1mm, a thickness of 10.4mm and a length of 95mm so it's fairly small and light. You can customise the wallpaper which I love.

The navigational system is easy to manage, having only nine icons to choose from. You can use the directional control to move through the icons. Scrolling through your albums is simple and straightforward thanks to the drag and drop function which makes it easy to use, rearrange and organise your library.

There is a volume button on the side so it can easily be adjusted and it features a lock system which prevents it jumping onto different songs if you knock it accidently when running or moving around.

It has a high quality two inch LCD screen which shows the videos and any photos which you have stored on there with a sharp and clear picture. It can display them both horizontally and vertically. It also has an alarm and timer function.

This product has an extended battery life which is supposed to last for up to 50 hours when playing music or ten hours of videos. This for me is vital as there is nothing more frustrating than the battery dying in the middle of a run or long journey. It has 4GB of memory so it can hold about a 1000 songs. The product boasts of having a smoother, purer and more superior sound quality than ever before thanks to new audio technologies.

The MP3 player comes with a selection of fun musical features. It includes SensMe, which is a Sony creation that maps your music onto an axis grid. It analyses each of your tracks individually by focuses on the tempo and speed of the track. It plots its findings on a graph and then you can generate playlists from the grid. The horizontal axis is based on your moods and the vertical is based on the tempo of the track. So if you are running, travelling or just want to wallow in self pity, you can easily locate the right background music. I love this!

It also has an inbuilt radio signal so you can listen to your favourite radio stations if you get fed up of your own library although you can only access FM frequency stations. It includes a programme called Lyric Sync which displays the lyrics of the songs that you are listening to so that you can have a little sing along. In combination with this feature, Sony have linked it with a Kareoke feature which lowers the singers voice to leave behind the music. This is great fun when you having a glass of wine with your friends!

When you get your music and videos from a variety of different sources. It can be a nightmare when you are listening to one song and the next one blasts out at a much higher volume, meaning that you need to constantly adjust the sound. This MP3 player comes with a Dynamic Normaliser which balances out the levels between the songs that you listen to meaning a smoother transition and no nasty suprises for you.

It has a built in recording device which allows you to record your voice to took notes or remember something. It works by using an internal microphone. I had this feature on my old MP3 player. I didn't use it then and I don't use it now but somebody obviously finds it useful because they keep including it in their products!

The MP3 player costs £69.99 with free delivery from the Sony Website. You can also find it in shops that sell electrical goods such as Currys and Argos although they may not stock all the colours. The price will vary from place to place so shop around if you have the time to. The product can be connected to your computer via a USB connection so you can transfer your videos and music across easily and charge your MP3 player up simply. The package includes the headphones and USB connection wire

All in all, with all the new features that this MP3 player contains, I no longer miss my old one. There are some features on this that I don't use and will never use but they don't interfere with the general usage of the product. I'm not sure I agree with the 50 hour battery life but it certainly does last a long time in between charges. The visual display is clear and the song quality is perfect. Not too sure about the function which makes the songs play at a similar volume. It helps but I still have to adjust the volume myself sometimes. Nevertheless, this does everything that it promises to and I wouldn't be without it now.