It's certainly small so small in fact that LP lost it! and we spent the first 15 minutes removing everything from the desks before we found the 30 x 82.6x16mm MPIO FY200 hiding under a back issue of stuff magazine, then  the scrabble to find a AAA battery but at least you only need one with this model which should see you get 11 hours of MP3 replay.

Having located our little friend it was time to load it up to the top with MP3 files although we could have used WMA's had we had any on LP's hard drive, the mini USB connector similar to those found on digital cameras is tucked away on the side of the FY200 and the supplied lead just plugs up to your USB port.

Filling up was quick enough and with 512mb of storage space the MPIO FY200 can hold about 100 tracks encoded at 128kbps although the FY200 can go up to 320kbps if you are a mad audiophile, WMA encoding peaks at 192kbps. The FY200 can also directly encode from CD/MD or other external audio source using the supplied 3.5mm audio cable to both MP3 and WMA which is a useful feature.

The FY200 also acts as an FM tuner  which like all the features is controlled via the Orange backlit screen, which could be argued is a little crowded in a "far east" style especially given that there are just 3 lines of text, for the style conscious the backlight can be changed to a yellow green to suite you mood, but our mood was for testing the MPIO sound quality.

The Supplied earphones won't be to everyone's tastes they are quite stiff when pressed into the ear but do deliver a reasonable audio performance, when mated with LP's Sennheisers the FY200 did deliver a sound performance with weighty bass if not a little too much top end giving a slightly tinny sound on some tracks but more than passable for a device of this size / price.

Navigation isn't too bad despite the small screen and the layout of buttons on the side of the unit is pretty simple to get to grips with, having lived with the MPIO FY200 for a few days before returning it its grown on us and has led us to the following conclusion.

If 512mb is enough and you want a small MP3 player for the gym or while out running or indeed anywhere very mobile, the small form factor and long battery life of the MPIO FY200 MP3 player make it a good buy and at £210 its still a significant investment. If however you are not "that mobile" then a hard disk based model can offer these features and more disk space for the same cash.

Buy it Now - MPIO FY200 - 512MB MP3/WMA Player

Included in box - User's guide, Mini USB adaptor, Stereo Cable, AAA alkaline battery, Neck Strap Earphones, Neck Strap Earphones Holder, Arm Band, Installation CD, Belt Clip, and USB Cable