After Apple's hugely successful venture into the world of personal audio, it was only a matter of time before others followed suit. The latest contender, the Creative Zen Touch, seems to have been influenced not only by the iPod's functionality but its physical appearance.

It has a similar white finish and, as the name suggests, uses 'touch' technology to browse through menus and music collections. However, its vertical touchpad uses an upward or downward rubbing action, instead of the more precise circular motion found on the iPod's click wheel. This isn't as intuitive as we'd have hoped, since it doesn't let you fast forward, rewind or adjust volume via the touchpad.

Where the Zen Touch does excel, though, is with its claimed 24-hour battery life. In our own tests it lasted around 20 hours, but this is still far more impressive than the latest generation iPod, which only lasts a maximum of 12 hours. This extra battery power has its drawbacks, however. The Zen is larger and heavier than the iPod, and its display is not very bright.

The Zen has 20Gb of storage space for MP3 and WMA music files. This is enough for about 5,000 songs, or 400 albums. It also supports the uncompressed WAV audio format. We tested the audio quality in comparison with other personal audio players and were impressed. We didn't think it sounded quite as good as the iPod, but most users shouldn't notice any difference.

You'll need to load the accompanying software to transfer music from your computer, but once installed, it uses fast USB 2 to copy your files. Another appealing feature is the Zen's ability to create playlists and delete tracks from the device itself.

It's £30 cheaper than the 20Gb iPod, so if you're looking for a low-cost, high-capacity player that supports MP3 and WMA, this is a very worthwhile consideration. It's not as stylish as the market leader, but it provides better value for money and is almost as easy to use.

Contact: Creative (no UK number)
uk.europe.creative.com

Also consider:
Apple iPod Mini