Thomson Lyra PDP2662S MP3 player

The gym-friendly audio player that measures your pulse while it pumps out your music.

Designed with gym-users in mind, this music player also checks your pulse rate and tells you how many calories you've burned. Which is, er, nice.

It comes with the friendly MusicMatch software for transferring files, but while WMA protected tracks are supported, it doesn't work with subscription services like Napster's. Sound quality is good, but tracks like Banquet by Bloc Party don't have the same oomph as on the Sony. Navigation is also cumbersome, mainly because response to the joystick is slow.

Battery life is very good at about 40 hours, but the trade-off is that this chunky unit uses an AA battery rather than a rechargeable.

The pulse rate monitor feature is a let-down - it's either wrongly calibrated or we need medical help - and the calorie counter is no better. This may be cheap, but it's not one to set pulses racing.