I was a Creative man, I loved the Creative Touch series and happily would while away hours listing to my entire collection on the 40GB tiny hard drive based device.

But I reached an impasse. I wanted a new, smaller player, which had access to podcasts and could show covers.

It was two events that moved me across the fence.

The first was reading reviews in what you may think would be Anti-Apple (www.pcpro.co.uk) singing the praises of design and value!!

The second: seeing the cover flow feature in real life. My friend had one for Christmas! Cover flow is a way of choosing an album to play by seeing at album artwork. It is very impressive and easy to use !

So I got one from Amazon.co.uk, graphite black I think the colour is. The features available are brilliant. I enjoy the ability to watch video Podcasts – the screen is of such a high quality viewing is very comfortable.

The sound quality is exceptional; I do recommend getting noise cancelling headphones if you travel on the Tube/subway as I do.

The iPod is truly brilliant and a perfect gift for anyone, especially yourself!

Andy