Labs

There's so much more to flash memory-based MP3 players than there used to be. Features such as video and touchscreens are becoming more commonplace, capacities are up to 16GB, and with many players now equipped with memory expansion slots, they're challenging the lower-end hard disk players for storage, too.

Sony's NWZ-S515 is more basic than either the nano or Archos 405 - it can't play back video, and you can't build dynamic playlists on it either - but it does have better sound quality than any of the other players in this group. It's solidly made without being particularly glitzy, and is notable for being one of Sony's first batch of drag-and-drop devices: there's no need to transcode files or use the horribly unwieldy SonicStage software any more. But £60 for 2GB of storage is a little pricey.