Bantam Interactive BA350

WHAT'S HOT: With a footprint smaller than a business card and only .625 inch thick, the BA350 pops into even the smallest pocket. Bantam included a raft of extras with the BA350, starting with seven color face plates to match your outfit or mood. You also get full headphones (not a pair of cheap ear buds), and a tape cassette adapter, so you can listen to the BA350 through your car stereo. The unit has 128MB of internal memory.

WHAT'S NOT: To charge the BA350's internal lithium-ion battery, you have to plug the player into your PC's USB port--a real pain if you're away from your PC for a few days. For battery charging to work, you have to turn on the BA350, wait for it to start, and then plug in the USB cable in just the right sequence. This process can be especially tricky if you've completely exhausted the player's battery. Due, undoubtedly, to its small size, the BA350's player's controls are small, making them a bit difficult to use if you have big fingers. The first release of the transfer software we looked at was nearly impossible to install on notebook PCs. The second release (R2) worked, but only after we placed a call to Bantam's tech support. Loading the software on desktop PCs was relatively painless.

WHAT ELSE: The BA350 kit includes a nice padded case with a belt clip. This is a good way to protect your player when you toss it into a bag, but to reach the volume control or on/off switch, you have to pull the player out of the case. The unit's nicely organized menus are a snap to navigate; because the text is small, however, it's not especially easy to read. Battery life is robust: In our tests, we got about 10 hours on a charge. For downloading music, the BA350 offers BitExplor, a simple but competent utility that lets you organize files and download them to your player.