Dell stopped selling hard drive-based digital music players in February and now it's dropped its own-brand Flash offerings too. Instead, the PC giant will sell players from SanDisk and Creative.

"Dell offers only name brand MP3 players," the company's website says, among the reasons it offers why consumers should buy a digital music player from Dell. Clearly, then, 'Dell' is not a name brand in the MP3 market.

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Dell's last own-brand player was the DJ Ditty, a $99 512MB device witha 1in, 96 x 32 LCD; a built-in 300mAh rechargeable battery capable of delivering up to 14 hours' continuous music playback; and an on-board FM tuner.

In place of the Ditty, Dell is offering US consumers the Sandisk Sansa m240, Sandisk's e 2x0 series and Creative's Zen Vision:M. In the UK, it's offering almost the full line-up of Creative Flash and HDD-based players. ®