Oh well at least the MPIO FD100 MP3 player is good to look at, in fact its rather funky, since we tested its slimline brother about a month ago we have become quite firm fans of MPIO who seem to have a knack for making an MP3 player something you don't want to stuff in your pocket or bag out of sight.

Styled in the now obligatory tech silver the and with the neon blue backlit screen the FD100 is as much a fashion accessory as a serious MP3 replay tool, the 4 line LCD screen is good for this class of player and shows all the unusual info on track title, artist and gives a graphical battery indicator. It measures about 66.5(W) x 66.5(H) x 17.5(D)mm and weighs in at 75 grams with battery which makes the FD100 very pocket friendly, there is a choice of silver , red or blue fascias.

Our silver one was put through its paces, audio quality is good replaying a high bit rate (320kbps) MP3 without problem and delivering a fair amount of bass clarity even though the supplied headphones, which is just as a well because you wouldn't want to throw these away. One of the key selling points for the MPIO FD100 is the LCD remote control which can scroll to show the ID3 tag, duration, artist etc and like the main body its backlit in the cool neon blue, its this kind of attention to detail that makes MPIO kings of style when it comes to mini MP3 players.

And despite our initial despondency at testing yet another flash player the MPIO FD100 is feature rich enough to make LP perk up and take interest, as well as the standard 128mb of Nand flash memory the FD100 comes with an expansion slot! taking smart media cards up to 128mb you can double the storage capacity of this little device easily.

In our tests we managed almost a full 24hrs of replay on a single AA battery which is good going and enough for even the most music loving user, connectivity is supplied by either exchanging smart media cards or by a USB 1.1 connection to a suitably equipped PC, windows XP users don't even need software as its just plug and go!

Talking of software the MPIO supports Apple iTunes plug-in and real Player and its ships with MPIO manager 2 which enables full ID3 tag editing and also allows for configuration of the device over USB including upgrades of firmware available from the MPIO website. Throw in an FM tuner from which you can also encode to MP3 plus a 7 band equalizer WMA, MPEG2 audio and ASF replay and we have to start to wonder if £130 isn't such a cheap price for this device that there has to be a catch?

Well nothings perfect and we did struggle with FM reception with an annoying tendency for the signal to be lost as you change direction but that's about all we could criticise and this all fades away when someone spots the slim remote control clipped to your lapel and you show them the main unit. Gadget exhibitionism is not yet outlawed in the UK which is just as well because the way MPIO are going the FD100 MP3 Player would be contraband!

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