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The main problem is that it is only 128MB and that means two hours of decent MP3 and around twice that should you approve of WMA. Yes everything is in the rather simple over ear headset. It looks rather like a headset provided with a lot of MP3 players a year or so ago. The difference is that the left earpiece has two rocker controls, a small jack socket for a USB lead and an LED.

Providing you are using later than Windows 98 you are unlikely to need a driver - one is provided for Windows 98 users - and the mini CD has a recent copy of Music Match on it to enable you to create MP3 files. When the headset is attached to the PC it appears as a drive letter in My Computer and you can drag and drop files to it.

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This is a USB 1.1 device but as the capacity is so small that is hardly important. There is an internal battery that is charged by attaching the USB to a PC. It is stated to take between four and five hours to fully charge.

The battery time between charges is not stated anywhere either on the packaging or in the small 16 page user guide, in use I found it to be around 140minutes. However just a few minutes of recharge then produces over an hour of playback. The controls are simple with only four possible buttons you hardly need a degree to operate it.

However operating the controls is rather fiddly and something you are unlikely to be able to do easily while on your head. After some practice I managed by feel to raise and lower the volume however this rocker button also advances and retreats the tracks and more than once I did this while adjusting the volume. All the buttons are naturally small and getting the right action needs concentration, often it was easier to remove the headset to perform it.

To turn the unit on you need to press one part of the rocker button until a beep is heard, you then get a flash of a green LED followed by a flash of a red LED and then a flash of a green LED again, after this you need to press the same part of the rocker again and once the green flashes continuously you will hear whatever the first track is you have. I defy anyone to do what I have described with the headset on. Even if you know where to press you will not be able to see the LED that is positioned on the left earpiece of the headset.

You need to press and hold the same part of the rocker button for two seconds to pause playback, the LED then turns solid green, if nothing is then pushed, a short time later the unit turns off. When you turn on again it will restart at the start of the track you were playing when you switched off. This also occurs once the unit runs out of power, so at least you restart with the track that was being played when power died.

On first start it will first play any files found in the root directory (folder) and then play through any sub folders. I was perfectly happy with the sound quality but that just about sums it up, I found adjustments a little hit or miss, the majority had to be conducted with the headset off and I certainly think the whole look and feel are not up to much. The stated price is £49.99 and it would need better controls, a lot more memory and better battery life to make me recommend it. Not all innovative ideas are winners, and in this configuration this is certainly not.

www.ministryofsound.com/audio