One of the coolest-looking MP3 players on the market, Nike gears its PSA[PLAY 120 towards -- surprise -- the athletically-inclined. Jointly developed by Nike and Rio, the PSA[PLAY 120 does a good job of blending the companies' strengths -- Nike's eye for hip, sporty design and S3 Rio's knowledge of portable digital music players. This collaboration results in one of the best-looking music players on the market, but one that otherwise breaks no new ground.

Nike designed the PSA[PLAY 120 with the jock in mind. Even when you're working out, your fingers can easily find and manipulate the rubberised buttons on the lightweight (79 grams, without its remote control), oval-shaped device. In addition to the standard beltclip, the player also ships with an elastic arm strap, which is great for running, inline skating, and so on.

Of course, Nike and Rio made some trade-offs in order to squeeze so much music player into such a small package. Most obvious, the main unit lacks any type of LCD display. In order to see the current track information, you must plug in a remote control that includes a scrolling display. The display only shows track title, number, and elapsed time, and can scroll longer song titles maddeningly slowly.

Not sure how much juice is left in your battery? Well, you had better keep a spare around, because you won't get any indication from the unit itself. And though we got close to 10 hours of play from a single AA battery, with the remote plugged in that time dropped to closer to 8 hours.

Standard playback controls and seven preset equaliser mode selections complete the PSA[PLAY 120's feature set. However, the included Nike Audio Manager (which is identical to the Rio Audio Manager software, except for a link to Nike's home page) allows users to rip CDs, create playlists, and copy and remove tracks to and from the portable player. The hardware doesn't support a way to reorder tracks once they're on the device, though the software suggests it does.

The PSA[PLAY 120 ships with 64MB of RAM, which should be able to hold up to 120 minutes of music; we fit closer to 135 minutes using 64Kbps Windows Media files. Nike expects to ship a 32MB version later this year, the PSA[PLAY 60.

There are certainly players out there with more features, including voice recorders and FM tuners -- but no AM, to our continued amazement -- but none turns heads like the PSA[PLAY 120. If style's important, or if you're simply looking for the perfect workout companion, we recommend that you give it a listen.

Nike PSA[PLAY 120
Company: Chips
Ph: 03 9696 1911; Fax: 03 9696 1942
Price: AU$599.
Rating: 4 Star