The diminutive MPMan MP-FOL8 measures about 3" x 1" by ¹/₂" (don't have a ruler here so that's about right!). It does a lot of things. Of course the main reason for buying such a device is to listen to music, which it does very well. It supports both MP3 format and Microsfts proprietary WMA format. Storage is 256Mbytes putting many other devices to shame. I have 56 tracks on the device at the moment, more than enough for even my longest training session.

As well as playing MP3/WMA it also has an FM radio and a built in microphone so youcan use it  as a dictaphone. The radio isn't too good to be honest, I havea much better small Roberts radio (which I might review separately).

Loading music onto the device is very simple. With Windows XP just plug the USB cable into the player and your computer and it immediately pops up as a new drive and all you have to do is drag music from your hard-drive to it's music folder and you're away!

One problem with the way it handles these files is that it cannot cope with sub-directories and has no concept of albums. This means, in my case it has 56 tracks ordered 1 through 56. If you don't want to listen to any more of one album you have to step one song at a time until you get to the one you want. Not ideal.

Controls are on one site of the device and a little fiddly. The entire device is controlled by two little multi-way switches. You can rock each up or down - and push them in for a 3rd function. The bottom one you push in to turn on the device on then rock it  up or down to change the volume. Everything else is handled by the second identical switch.

This second switch is somewhat overloaded. In normal operation you rock up to move to the next track, down to move to the previous one. If you press in and hold for a second you enter into a control menu giving you lots of functions including radio, playback, record, graphic equaliser etc. No option to put the radio into Mono unfortunately. I've yet to find a small radio that can do stero without a background hiss usually fixed by hitting the mono option.

As well as a good set of earphones and USB cable it comes with a protective sleave/cove which doubles as a belt clip. Theres also a coord for hanging around your neck. This has been consigned to the desk draw where it will likely remain. Having something hanging around your neck when exercising isn't a lot of fun! It could really do with something like an arm band or something to hold it. It does fit nicely in a small pouch in my running shorts.

Battery life is excellent from a single AAA baterry. Using a Ni-Mh rechargable gives many hours play back.

Despite the gripes about fiddly controls this is a great little player. It's pretty expensive compared to other similar machines, and I have no idea how it compares. John Lewis are selling it at £139. I saw it advertised at £127 at Robertsons, but clicking on their site just brought up a blank page! Probably a little expensive give nthe price now of 256Mbyte of memory. There isn't a lot more to a dvice like this.