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Digital music players are one of the great spin offs of computer technology. The arrival of the MP3 standard morphed our computers from mere bean counters into vast audio jukeboxes. And it didn’t take long before devices small enough to carry all that music around arrived.

As with all major technology leaps I held off from jumping in straight away, preferring to let the technology mature. That was three years ago and although in that time I have got to grips with many digital music players, I have yet to put my money on the counter. The main reason for this was trying to decide whether to buy a small, jog proof solid-state memory player or a larger, more capacious hard disk based device. It’s a conundrum that many people have, and I was hoping that my time with the Decktron i-MPIA 4256 player might help me solve it.

On the face of it, the i-MPIA 4256 has a lot of good things going for it, though a snappy name certainly isn’t one of them. It supports MP3, WMA and ASF, works as a storage device, is an FM radio with auto tuner and 20 presets, and can act as a voice recorder. It has in-built encoding up to 224kbps, two headphone outputs, a manually adjustable graphic equaliser and a showy if not overly useful choice of seven backlit colours for the LED.

Despite the richness of features, in use the 4256 was something of a mixed bag. Firstly, there are the physical dimensions. Though it only weighs a mere 30g (excluding its single AAA battery) it actually measures a rather chunky 90 x 34 x 14mm (HxWxD), which is only slightly smaller than an iPod mini. So while you may feel not it in your trouser pocket, there is still a sizeable lump. The integration of a large screen would have provided some compensation for this but at just 27 x 12mm the display is actually a major disappointment, especially considering the mass of wasted space to the side of it, which is instead filled up with sticky logo labels.

Secondly, it is my experience that products tend to fall into one of two categories: those that you can instinctively pick up and operate and those where you need to bury your head in the manual. Sadly the 4256 fits in the latter. It’s no exaggeration to say I could not even move between albums without having to reference the instructions. The problem lies in the main with the jog wheel. First, it needs be held down for differing amounts of time to access different menus. Secondly, in some menus the jog wheel is used to scroll through the contents, while in others the volume controls are used instead. To be frank, the navigation is a mess.