Philips didn't pick the 85mm x 54mm dimensions of the HDD070 player by chance, but instead it chose them carefully as they give the player exactly the same footprint as a credit card, but rather thicker of course.

That's not much smaller than the Archos Gmini but it sounds dead impressive, and if you haven't already reached for a credit card to do a visual check then your geek credentials are sadly lacking.

The HDD070 is a 2GB update of the 1.5GB HDD060, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Philips tells us that it uses a magnesium case, presumably to save weight, but the HDD070 weighs almost exactly the same as Creative's MuVo² which doesn't make any claim of using exotic materials, so it would seem to be a bit of a red herring.

Thankfully the HDD070 uses ID3 tags to organise your music, and although 2GB is a little on the small side for a hard drive player you can cram plenty of music into it. Finding the track or artist that you want is quick and simple thanks to Philips' Superscroll feature which steps through your playlist by alphabetical letter, rather than track by track.

Get the latest Dell Coupons and other computer coupons at CheapStingyBargains.com.

We weren't that impressed by the Philips software, which you are obliged to use with this player, as it's not very user-friendly. Apparently the software is locked to the player to protect musical copyright, so it would seem that it's not just Creative that is playing this particular game.

That's a real pity as everything else about the HDD070 is excellent. Audio quality is particularly good and the bass boost feature really makes a difference. Even at the full ticket price of £169 this player is a bargain.