iPod pick of the bunch

Their verdict: "Probably the only player you'll ever need."

"iPod is the ultimate portable music player, as this review demonstrates," said Elias Abou-Rustom, Marketing Director at Arab Business Machine Ltd. (ABM). "It can be used by Mac or PC users, and is the most advanced and feature-packed player on the market."

iPod, won praise with reviewers for its compactness, feature richness and advanced touch-sensitive scroll pad, an industry first for Apple. Its LCD screen was the largest of all players reviewed by the magazine, with menu navigation rated "very simple."

But the iPod's performance was where it really excelled. It won points for its ultra-long battery life, with just one hour of battery charging giving more than twelve hours of playing. Sound quality, bass and treble all won high praise. PC Magazine Middle & Near East also described iPod's revolutionary earbuds as "comfortable to wear and they don't seem to slip out."

"It will be a one time investment, and surely an asset that will be with you for quite some time," reviewers wrote.

Just the size of a pack of cards, the iPod can hold up to four thousand songs in CD-quality sound. Downloading digital music from a laptop or PC to the iPod is lightning fast thanks to its built-in FireWire - 1,000 songs in less than 10 minutes. It boasts skip-free technology and an LED backlit screen for clear visibility.

Far from being just an MP3 player, the iPod also doubles up as an external hard drive, coming in generous 20GB, 10GB and 5GB sizes. Its contacts feature allows users, view names and addresses downloaded from applications such as Microsoft Entourage, Palm Desktop and Mac OS X Address Book.