Midget Music Players

Can a music player ever be too small? Choose between convenience and control, color and monochrome, cuteness and connectivity with the iPod shuffle and Samsung's blue-lit YP-U2. You may be surprised by the audio quality too: we think Samsung has the edge here.

It's so ironic considering that only a few years ago cellphone makers were bitten by the same bug - how much smaller can we make the cellphone. Motorola came out with the v66 and then Samsung released an even tinier model.

But as we have seen with cellphones, small size versus features is a tough battle. Technology can only get you so far, and for maufacturers to make money and consumers to get hooked, in the end it is features that sell.

For my money, I'm very happy with my PPC phone. It fits in my pocket nicely, and I can pull it out anywhere and watch a full-length movie on it. Heck, for the price of a video ipod, it does WAY MORE for me than just play movies and music!!!

the import tax, Brendan; the EU slaps a far higher import tax on anything with digital recording capabilities and they've been doing the same for FM radio-enabled players, but several companies have told me this is due to end and they'll be going with the same spec for UK and US soon (and the sooner the better). Other companies leave out the FM radio rather than raise the price in a market where they believe price shifts more units than features.