Dell Pocket DJ

Dell claims the Pocket DJ gets 10 hours of battery life, but in our tests it didn't make it past the 8-hour mark. Otherwise, the Dell Pocket DJ is a perfectly capable player with good sound quality and a price that's $50 less than most of the competition.

The Dell Pocket DJ uses a nearly identical interface to the Zen Micro (even the software is the same), with one minor change: The touchpad has been replaced with a physical wheel and buttons. It's strange that such a minor change would make such a major difference. The Dell felt natural to use, and the Play and Skip buttons located beneath the wheel were easy to find without looking.

The Pocket DJ sounded good, and the included headphones were nice and loud. This is a no-frills player, though, and it doesn't include a carrying case or any extras besides headphones and cables. Like the Zen Micro, it's compatible with WMP, but as with all the players, transfers were extremely slow (the included software is the ubiquitous MusicMatch). Drag-and-drop transfers were slightly faster than with the Zen Micro, but still on the sluggish side.

The Dell Pocket DJ is a digital music player and nothing else. There's no FM tuner or voice recorder. Still, it's less expensive than the other players included in this roundup, and it plays music-if little else-as well as any of them.