Obviously just ergonomic, and splash proof.

Only Apple seem to understand the intended use of small mp3 players. They used a lot by people jogging and in the gym. So why does a flash player need to be so bulky?

Where's the clip? not everyone wants wires dangling out of their shorts. Not all shorts have pockets.

Those armbands for mp3 players look stupid as well.

There's loads of these USB stick MP3 players about, what's new about this one?

£40 for 1GB seems steep, you can buy other Sony ones as well as numerous other brands for half that with twice the capacity on amazon already.

Is it really just cos it's in lipstick dispenser like colours?

you can get the 4gb NW-E016 from currys/dixons etc for £54. However I don't recommend it. No drag and drop meaning you have to use the absymal sony supplied SonicStage software, I wanted to gouge my own eyeballs out after 10minutes of using it. When you give up with that there are some alternative software suggestions found on the sonicstage wikipedia article but none of them are satisfactory. Sort it out Sony, I took mine back and got a nano- it was worth paying that much more for something that worked easily.

...why the company that invented such small cassette-based walkmans are still knocking out such massive mp3 players. absolutely bizarre. I don't know anybody that's bought a Sony mp3 player and been happy with it.

Sony: give me a call, i'll help you design something customers will actually want!

I thought it was foundation that was usually drip-proof, not lipstick.

(But then what do I know? I'm a bloke....)

The thing is huge for a 1 Gb player. And expensive too. Must have a huge battery... I mean, my old nano is not much bigger than that.

Funnily enough, my wife got one of the 1Gb Sony players described in this article and I had no real trouble with the SonicStage software, or in syncing the player with Windows Media Player 11.

Whereas the trouble with iPod Nano was that I spent two weeks trying to make iTunes work on the computer and it wouldn't open because of a Quicktime buffer overload problem that could not be fixed or removed in any fashion known to any tech savvy person on the internet.

Twenty minutes to get used to the Sony player with Sonicstage and everything just worked - two weeks with iTunes and the iPod Nano and nothing worked at all.

So I disagree with you vehemently.