Sony Mp3 players (handily called Walkman after the legendary player that made music truly portable in the first place) have attempted a couple of times to set new standards in the MP3 player market.

Sony first, for example, came up with the buffer memory necessary to make your listening experience while jogging truly jump-free and they were the first to look at weight in their MP3 players so that they did not bounce around so much while their owners jumped, skipped and ran.

Ever since then Sony have struggled to escape what everyone else in the MP3 player market has and that is the gigantic shadow of the iPod.

Styling, features, pricing and the odd innovation have failed to really light up a spark in consumers’ eyes and minds but that does not mean that Sony is underperforming. It’s just that it is simply not in the same league as its main competitor but then again, who is?

Take one of their offerings: the NW-E003 which is Sony's latest attempt to corner the ultra-portable mp3 player market.

Despite resembling a standard USB flash drive, this player maintains a sense of style with its glossy/matt combination finish coupled with a neat layout of the buttons and a strap hole in the casing if you fancy wearing it necklace style.

Duracell bunnies will be devastated to hear this player can keep going for up to 28 hours using its lithium-ion battery.

Although this is significantly less than the Sony's Bean, which claims a 50 hour battery life, when you consider how lightweight the NW-E003 is (25g), the extended playback time isn't bad at all.

On top of this it boasts a quick charge facility enabling you to get three hours of playback from just three minutes charging via USB. The display is clear, saving energy by only activating it when you’re using the player.

The USB connector is built into the device and accessible via a removable cap. The cap is pretty secure and a smooth fit, so we donít foresee any problems with losing it.
Much of the flexibility afforded by the USB key design is undone by the necessity to have Sony's software installed to properly transfer music to the device - you'll need to install the Sonicstage software in order to convert mp3, wma and wav files to Sony's Atrac format before transferring to the player.

If you're using it as a USB key for file storage (documents, images etc.), the Sonicstage software isn't required.

While playback functionality is fairly rudimentary you can generate playlists on your PC and the player supports shuffle and random playback. You can search for songs by album, artist and title.

The device is also available in 512MB and 2GB versions. However, there's little point in skimping on memory and opting for the smaller 512MB version - why bother having a player with such great battery life if you wíll only end up connecting it to your PC regularly to refresh your music?

If you're looking for a small, light player with great battery life, a quick charging facility, all the audio quality you expect from Sony and can put up with using its Atrac digital rights management system there ís not a whole lot wrong with this device.

At £79 for the 1GB version it represents decent value for money and, for an extra £10, you can get the F model that includes an FM radio tuner.