3. Samsung YP-T9

The YP-T9 is small and black, but with a hold slider on one side, power/play/pause, menu, record and back buttons on the other and a five way controller on the front, it's nowhere near as sleek and elegant as the K3. It makes up for looking like last year's design by adding Flash gaming, video playback, voice recording and Bluetooth streaming to the feature list, as well as support for Ogg.

Because the T9 is so small, you can hang it around your neck from a lanyard, so putting the headphone socket on the top makes sense. The microphone is there too, with the connection port at the bottom; again it's the proprietary Samsung USB connection. The headphones are the same earbuds that come with the K3 too, so you'll have to buy your own Bluetooth headphones to use with the T9, which pushes up a price that's already a little higher than that of the iPod nano. You can also pair with a mobile phone, which pauses playback when you take a call and lets you speak through the T9's microphone.

Splitting the controls between the front and the side means that you can't do everything with your thumb, and while you can start a track playing with the center button you can't pause it. Add in the slight lag in the navigation when you press buttons and the interface takes a little while to master, although the menu options are clear. There are far more options than on the K3, including displaying album art or choosing how far ahead fast forward takes you, and more 3D sound settings, include custom 3D options and custom EQ. (The controls are on the Settings menu rather than the menu available when you're playing music.)

In this case the other effects are worth exploring, although the combination of 3D Stage and Street Mode give the fullest, richest sound. Samsung's Digital Natural Sound engine (DNSe) does a good job with bass. This isn't quite as good as the K3's sound compared side by side; bass is full and treble notes are clean and clear, and though we didn't hear the same strength in the mid range, the sound quality is still excellent.

We tested the T9 with Jabra's BT620s Bluetooth headphones. Pairing is simple as long as you know how to put your headphones into pairing mode, and you get an on-screen keypad to enter the PIN. Sound quality is just as good over Bluetooth, and you can pause, skip, fast forward and rewind with the controls on your headphones. It's very liberating not to have to fumble for the player controls, and you can get at least 30 feet away from the T9, although a solid door or wall will interrupt the signal.