7. Philips KEY015: Better Stay Away

Yes, its sleek black sheath is not without elegance. And yes, with 512 MB of memory, this player has one of the largest capacities of our selection. However, it's also one of the worst. All we'll say about the sound is that it stifles both ends of the audio range, in the bass and in the treble. We'll say more about the ergonomics - or the lack thereof.

At first glance, this player looks fairly practical. Thanks to its USB port, it connects directly to the computer for use as a storage medium, to offload music files via simple drag-and-drop or to recharge. While traveling, all you do is connect it to its external battery pack (which uses one 1.5-V AAA battery) to gain a little more autonomy. But it's still cruelly short in that department. Despite its large memory, capable of storing up to 16 hours of music, it only has a listening time of 5 1/2 hours. Discouraged yet? No? Then try turning the player on. That's right, there's no button. There are none at all on this player - they're all located on the remote control. And even then, there are only five: play/stop, fast forward, rewind, volume up, and volume down. You'll have to make do with those. You don't like the balance of treble and bass? Too bad, you'll have to wait until you're connected to your PC to make adjustments with MusicMatch (supplied by Philips) or another music-file manager program. The only advantage of this remote control is that it's independent of the earphones. So you can replace Philips's earphones (that muffle the bass even more) with those of your choice without hesitation. But be careful which ones you choose, because the remote-control cable alone is 88 cm long. With the Philips earphones (whose cable is on the short side) the total length is 124 cm, and it's a full 190 cm with the Sennheisers we used for the tests!