The Sony Walkman NW E013F

The Sony Walkman NW E013F, swinging into Bangkok with a mirrored frond and cornered edges. Sony Walkman E013 is quite the dandy. A kung-fu dandy, though, packing a feature set that stomps on Apple iPod and Creative Zen's knees in exceptionally heavy boots.

Alongside a quality FM radio, there's a bright, three-line color LCD, which can display album art. The battery life is a monstrous 30 hours, and a piffling three minutes of charging via USB gives your three hours of music playback.

Getting ATRAC, MP3, AAC and WMA files on the 1GB Sony Walkman is a slight pain, thanks to Sony's SonicStage, which you're mystifyingly forced to use. It's touching that Sony has such faith in this much-reviled software, but drag and drop would be so much better.

Still, hatred will fade from even the blackest of hearts as technologies such as Clear Stereo and Clear Bass help conjure up terrific sound with plenty of bottom end. There's even an equalizer. For the obvious equalizing.

Navigation isn't as straightforward as you can find in other MP3 players, but cover search and a file tree are still easy to use.

With spiffing, clear design, terrific features and a color LCD, this is the perfect portable MP3 player. Run man, and get this 2400 Baht Sony Walkman, you not feel sorry...