On our desk this week - 5

Sapphire Ivory MP3

The back of the box claims that "The solution to the all-in-one digital device demand has arrived... Expand your digital horizons." Marketing rubbish aside, this could well be the best answer to the cheapie-MP3-player dilemma.

Music players aren't Sapphire's usual territory, but they appear to be taking a break from building graphics cards to focus on something a little different. This player sports 512MB of memory, a monochrome LCD screen with a blue backlight and a bunch of controls around the side. The bundle is minimal - a driver disk (should you need it) and a USB cable for charging.

The player simply plugs in via USB and allows you to drag and drop via My Computer. Like the S.Beat, this also doesn't support PlaysForSure, but if you're just transferring your own MP3s, you probably won't care. The player also sports a couple of other functions - it has a built in game (meh), a kareoke system (bah) and a line-in and in-built mic for recording (not bad). It plays MP3 and (non-DRM) WMA.

The menu system is one of the best we've seen on a non-Apple player. A rocker on the top corner of the player allows you to move through options and the rocker clicks in to select. Items are clearly labelled, and navigating a music directory is fairly simple. It's also easy to get at equaliser options and volume up/down is handled by a separate pair of buttons on the side.

The price is right on this player. At £65, it's pretty good value for a 512MB player, especially one with a decent interface (the iPod Shuffle is £49 for comparison with no interface). If you're looking for a cheap and cheerful music device, you could do far worse than this.

Name: Sapphire Ivory MP3
Buy it from: MicroDirect
Cost: £64
Verdict: A good interface and good price - get one if you want a decent drag-and-drop MP3 player.