It seems hard to believe that it was almost exactly a year ago that iRiver brought out its H10 multimedia player, with its emphasis on compactness, ease of function and good sound quality. The U10 has taken on board several of the shortcomings of its predecessor and done much to improve them, but there are still one or two areas in which more useful alterations could be brought in.

First, the good points. This is a very light, credit card sized entertainment centre that weighs a mere 70g (compared to the H10's 96g) and yet the screen size has been expanded from 1.5 inches to a very comfortable 2.2 inches. It's a colour TFT display with a 320 x 240 QVGA resolution. The unit is smartly designed with a black front surround and the rest of the body a distinctly iPod white.

The biggest change is in the control system. Apart from the power button, volume slider, earphone socket and USB 2.0 port, you could be forgiven for thinking that iRiver had forgotten about the essential directional controllers. However, the designers have dispensed with a scrolling touchpad in favour of a revolutionary new 'direct click' method on the screen itself with arrows pointing up and down, left and right to do the menu manipulation.

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

This works a treat and if you want to make life even easier for yourself, then you're also supplied with a fetching white cradle, into which your unit fits snugly, giving the whole assembly the appearance of a mini TV. The controls can then be operated via the slim infrared remote and the cradle has outputs to link to an external hi-fi system.

Supported formats include MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG Q10 for audio, MPEG4 SP videos and JPG photos. Texts with a 'txt' extension can be read and transferred using Windows Explorer as can Macromedia Flash files and games (a few games are already included). As with the H10 there's also a built-in FM tuner with the ability to record programmes - the antenna is integrated into the high quality earphones. There's an integrated microphone for recording digital voice messages and quick transfers are assured through the USB 2.0 port.

The main downside with this unit is the limited memory - just 1GB - but if you have limited amounts of music, photos or video that you want to store while travelling then this is a reasonably good option for an entertainment centre. Also, AVI format videos can be watched but any other formats will have to be converted prior to transfer. The 20 hours of music playback battery life, on the other hand, is a huge plus.

It looks good, the sound quality is excellent and the operating system is extremely user friendly. Because of its size, versatility and battery power this should be high on your shopping list if you don't need loads of storage space while on the move.