Iomega HipZip MP3 Player 80Mb

For those of you for whom quantity is more important than portability, I'd recommend the Creative Labs Jukebox - it's got a healthy onboard 6GB drive for those who need to take their entire collection from one place to another without too much fuss. I also checked out the Diamond Rio range, but was disappointed by the paltry on-board memory - a mere 32MB. Further investigation with other makes revealed this to be a major drawback with most other makes and models; in order to go on the road with a decent selection of tracks, one would need to lash out several hundred pounds just on memory cards, just to be able to play eight or nine tracks at reasonable quality. All of a sudden, my dodgy old Walkman started to look very appealing again...

And then along came a review of the HipZip in the ever-dependable T3 mag. First item to catch my eye was Iomega's name -- as a Mac/PC graphics and video artist, I've long been familiar with Iomega's excellent portable storage and backup drives. Secondly was the use of Iomega's own Pocketzip (or "Clik") disks as the medium for music storage: they're only 40MB each, but come in at a mere £10 (approx) in price -- the equivalent memory card would clock in at something like £120. Ouch.

A nicely-moulded casing ensures good grip, and easy access to the control buttons whose functions are displayed on a nicely-sized screen, which also shows you the name of the track and the artist performing it. Perhaps most importantly of all, there's a very decent onboard selection of graphic equalizer presets (with the option to create your own) to get the most out of a track encoded at, say, 128MB. I was personally astonished at the quality of the sound output -- apart from the Rio and the Handspring players, sound quality seems to be the main stumbling point of MP3 players in general, with output ranging from the murky to the downright unlistenable. None of that with the HipZip -- treat yourself to a pair of in-ear 'phones like the Sony Digitals (approx £18) and you're away... simply plug in to your PC or Mac with the supplied USB cable after installing the so-simple-a-baby-could-do-this software, and you're away.

The current packaging also gives you a protective wallet, a pair of headphones (best replaced immediately - see above), USB connectivity and (depending on supply) four PocketZip disks totalling 160MB of space to play around with. Further disks can easily be ordered via computer shops or Dixons' Partmaster service (check in shops for details).

Add all this to the fact that the firmware can easily be updated to handle WMA and LiquidAudio files as well as the venerable MP3, and this is a future-proof and thoroughly to-die-for piece of kit. Car owners should get the stereo adapter as well, to output the HipZip's audio through the in-car hi-fi. Topping all this off is cross-platform PC-to-Mac-and-back-again compatibilty, and the important fact that the PocketZip disks can also be used to cart around your important graphics and ideas files, should you require. Lovely.

An utter joy to play music on whilst bustling about, the HipZip gets my top vote in all departments. Go for it today. You seriously won't regret it.

- Tony Luke, U.K.

The Iomega support forums also had at least one other customer complaining about the issue of stuck disks, and it appears to be a fault in the manufacturing process whereby the little "nubs" on the disks snap off inside the machine. Buyers beware!!!