I recently purchased a shiny, new mp3 player and thought perhaps you might like to meet him. Being a fashionable sort he does have a very hectic social life, but luckily I managed to corner Mr m:robe for long enough to extract a few details that might be of interest to a potential buyer. Read on...

I'm a rather svelte 90 (w) x 52 (h) x 14.9 (d) mm. So pretty small, and certainly pocket sized. And-although you shouldn't really be asking a gentleman such a question-I weigh only 100g.

I'm an iPod Mini**/Nano beating 5GB, plenty enough to keep you going for a good long time. That's approximately 1200 songs at 128 kbps, though obviously you can fit a darn sight more Rudimentary Peni or Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster on it and rather less of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I do draw the line at Westlife, you'll find I can fit only half one of their tracks onto my internal memory at any one time. It's a bug in my circuitry. Ahem.

Well, I'm a foxy little beast if I do say so myself. The picture above does me no justice! I've got that particular Knightrider cool that surely anyone born in or around the 80's will appreciate; I wipe the floor with those silly clunky iPods as far as appearance goes. I'm red and black and all glossy, and manage to look disco cool rather than Goth. I'm a bit masculine, but a bit beautiful too. Like the MP3 version of the dancers in the Robert Palmer Addicted to Love video. Very androgynous, very Uber-Mod. This MP3 player has cheekbones and no mistake.

I do find that I have that effect on people.

I'm pretty good on that score. I have a rechargeable Li-ion battery and take about 3 hours to charge from empty to full capacity if you use the charging cradle. Then I'm all yours for a minimum of 12 hours of constant playback, hurrah! I also charge via the USB cable when connected to a computer, either when you're loading music onto me or just idle-though I do take a little longer to charge this way. As another direct comparison to the iPod, my battery is built-in but is also in fact replaceable. As with any Li-ion battery devices after about 500 charges I can become less effective and run down more quickly, and this is where the iPod sucks as the battery can't really be removed and replaced. But do not fear! Olympus offer a full spares list and even show you how to replace the battery in the instructions.

Saucy… I'm currently sporting a black and red velvet number, however this is not included in the m:robe package and usually needs to be bought separately. What you do get for your money however is a simple little camel feely pouch, suedette I suppose, which protects my shiny outside from scratching. However some people lose theirs as soon as they get them and have to resort to the posh accessories [glances my way]. So yes, the official m:robe case is rather cool, it's a convertible outfit which can be altered to attach to an arm or belt for sports or gym activities. Further details can be found on the official Olympus website ***.

There are also a couple of other bits available, but not quite the range you get with iPods. After all, my first priority is to be an mp3 player and not just a shiny, pretty brick. However, I do have a matching pair of earphones-which of course you get included in the basic m:robe package as they are rather vital. These are fairly standard iPodalikes, you know the sort-white earbud things. I'd have designed something a bit foxier myself-they're a bit of a copout compared to the rest of me. But they do the job well enough. There is also the optional extra of a remote control thingy, which is really designed for the MR500 (my photo capable brother) and so clashes a little with my red and black features. But it's available and compatible should you require it.

Once you've docked me in my cradle-which incidentally comes in the basic package-Windows XP recognises me straightaway. I register as a removeable disc drive on your desktop, and this is the part which I know that you have trouble with, Sootica. It's unfortunately not quite as simple as dragging and dropping mp3 and WMA files into my folder, as with a flash drive based player. Instead Olympus have tried to create a piece of software to rival iTunes, but even I must admit that they have failed miserabley here. Because, straight from the horse's mouth as it were, m:trip is absolute pants. It's got a horrible interface, it's very slow and to get any music to adhere to my memory you need to first load it into the m:trip library. Which, for indecisive people who keep rearranging their files-yes-that's you Sooty, becomes something of a nightmare. To cap it all off, transferring files is none too reliable and sometimes you have to sync twice to get it to fill in the bits that didn't work the first time around.

Good. My menus are easy to browse once you get to grips with the touchscreen, which is essentially very like manouvering with a laptop touchpad. Once you get the hang of it it's peasy. You can browse by artist, album, genre, year etc and can set up playlists via m:trip if you're brave enough, or Media Player if not. You can shuffle across the folders, or within each one and can also repeat tracks or playlists to your heart's content. I always think it would be nice if you could create playlists on the fly, or delete tracks that you don't want-but as yet Olympus haven't written this option. It's a minor gripe however, and I'm pretty happy with my menu capabilities.

I would say that if you're the kind of person that cares more about a label than form and content, a person that likes their mp3 player to play Reversi with them, who wants to carry around their entire music collection all at once and who has shares in Apple then go for the iPod or iRiver or whichever other iThing catches your eye. If, however, you appreciate all things sleek and shiny, favour simplicity over carting around a million tracks you'll probably never listen to and want your mp3 player to play mp3's rather than do the dishes then I say give my brothers and I a go! You can't go far wrong with the m:robe family. And even better, Olympus are bringing out a range of coloured models and are constantly updating firmware. They don't stand still, those Olympus lads.

With ease! Just look at me. I'm toned and honed and ready to take on those prinky big girl's blousy iPod Minis. I have greater hard drive capacity**, style and I think credibility than an iPod. I'm an individual, not one of the bleating Apple flock. I'm also usually cheaper! Though I prefer to say better value, lest I sound tarty. Sure, the iPod Nano is all skinny malinky and colour screeny, but what can you do with a colour screen the size of a postage stamp anyway? It's a big show off, that Nano. Ultimately I'm a good size, I play your mp3s and look super smart. What more do you need? It's clear I'm anti-iPod. Yes, I'm a contrary sort, but I really do think it is overrated and overpriced. Whilst I know I'll never knock the iPod off its podium or steal it's crown I think you should give me a second glance as my potential is pretty darn good. Consider the mark one iPods, they were clunky things with a million squillion bugs so already my m:robe friends and I are well ahead. Watch this space...if this is the first generation, imagine how lovely my siblings could be!

Now, whilst Mr m:robe is looking at himself in the mirror I'd like to add a little extra which I don't want him to hear or he'll get all stroppy with me. So sssshhh…I'll just quickly bring up the things that prevents him from getting five stars.

Oh he really is beautiful though. So shiny. He's quirky, but now I'm used to his little foibles I'm very happy with him. I am optimistic that future firmware upgrades will address certain issues such as volume, and I do trust Olympus as a brand for quality so I think my shiny little music friend will be with me for a long time. Hurrah!