I love my mp3 player. I write that in fear in case I tempt fate and it breaks, but hey, it’s not even a year old yet, so let’s hope not.

I picked up my Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 40GB player last year in America, and coming in at around £118 thanks to the currency differences, it was quite a bargain. It was far from a new range at the time, and I think you’d do well to find one new now seeing as they introduced more expensive models that do the same thing but look snazzier in the process.

But I’m not one to care about prettiness. After all, up until around 2002 I was still walking around with a massive bulge in my pocket that was actually just my walkman. Then there was a switch over to a discman, and again, I was perfectly happy to have such a bulky object attached to me as long as I could mix music and motion. So when I finally made the move to an mp3 player, my biggest priority wasn’t finding a player that will fit inside my mouth or be a gaudy white colour, but one which sounded good and had enough space to carry more than I’d ever have time to listen to. The Zen Xtra does that job wonderfully, and even though I sometimes receive nosey looks on the train, as if to ponder, ‘what kind of ugly ipod is that?’ it’s actually quite shiny and sleek once you strip back it’s free leather case – yes a free accessory.

At the same time I bought the mp3 player, I also made the great retail judgement to purchase Sennheiser PX100 headphones, and there’s no doubting that those are the best personal headphones I’ve ever owned. Truth be told, I think they even have a better bass response than my aging Sennheiser studio headphones, and for such a small package that folds away neatly in your bag, they’re an audiophile’s dream. The only small negative is that their open design means sound easily spills outwards, so I tend to tread carefully on busy trains so as not to annoy people – unless they annoy me first, then I let the volume rip.

The story doesn’t finish there, however, because in fact a second mp3 player joined the Stayfun family last month. As a graduation present for Natasja, and in the knowledge that she would probably be starting a new job soon and doing a lot of travelling, I opted for the Creative Zen Nano Plus 1GB. Not through loyalty to Creative or anything of the sort. I still do my rigorous research when looking to purchase any elements of technology. It just seemed to fit the bill of having a reasonable capacity, a host of cool features that might be handy, like voice recording, a line-in and FM radio, and primarily it’s tiny, which is ideal for her to carry around.

So over the past couple of weeks it’s been getting used and so far it seems pretty good. The limited capacity doesn’t suit my personal listening habits – I like to carry all the key albums from my collection, as well as a lot of new stuff to try out – but for what it is, it’s another Creative product I’m really happy with. And while the FM radio could be seen as a gimmick, I’ve actually found it achieves better reception in my home than my DVD player which has an aerial attached.