Noticeably missing is a track name listing on the LCD panel. However, you do get a minute and second count and an indication of the remaining battery power.

The in ear headphones proved both clear and punchy in our tests, avoiding the overly wet bass response of most personal stereo headphones. We'd argue they were possibly the best on test here although, as always, sound quality is subjective.

Inside the Rio is 32MB of memory and this can be expanded by a flash card slot on the underside of the machine. The card can be locked in place, and a separate control also allows you to lock the controls to avoid accidentally pressing them.

Power is from a single AA battery and connection to the PC is by the parallel port. The Rio Manager software looks fantastic and also lets you play music CDs, but perhaps isn't the easiest to use. We had to experiment a little to find out how to inexpensive songs into the player. With an ECP parallel port, songs took around 10 seconds to transfer, which we felt was plenty fast enough. Also supplied is Music Match Jukebox which lets you 'rip' songs from CD.

Diamond - Rio PMP300 price

£84 + VAT