Flashy Walkman

In today's paper, read the full verdict on Sony's new range of flash-based Walkmans (er, Walkmen?), which are something of a return to form. The NW-E400 (or E500, which has an FM tuner) is not only tiny and gorgeous, it has astonishing battery life of up to 40 hours.

Sony itself quotes up to 50 hours of running time but that's the usual contemptible marketing spin, assuming that every song would be encoded at a crappy 48kbps in ATRAC format. Yeah, right, as if. The figure of 45 CDs' worth of capacity for the 1GB version is based on that same stupid premise. Count on space for more like 20 to 30 albums in reality.

SonicStage, the jukebox software that Sony bundles with every Walkman, is now up to version 3 but is no better than its competitors were three or four years ago. No smart playlists, no MP3 encoding (though playback of that format is possible) and sluggish performance.

In games, Jade Empire (Xbox) is a martial arts beat-em-up grafted on to a simplified but engrossing RPG. Unreal Championship 2 (Xbox) takes arena combat to the next level with some manic melee fun but it might be too frantic for many gamers and really works only as a multiplayer. Enthusia (PS2) tries a new twist on Gran Turismo but comes up short on several levels. Finally, CT Special Forces: Fire For Effect (PS2) breaks no new ground as a shooter but is not a bad choice with its budget price tag.