The trend for more traditionally computing-related firms to edge towards the home entertainment arena has already seen the likes of Videologic and Apple pretty much switch sides. Creative isn't going that far, and still has its toe very much in computer hardware, yet with accomplished units such as the neatly evolving Zen Xtra portable music players, it's not tricky to foresee a day when portable audio becomes Creative's calling card.

Let's make no bones about the main attraction of the unit we're testing here, though; that's its capacity. Weighing in at 60GB, it's not only bigger than the hard disk in one of our test PCs, it also has space to happily store the best part of 20,000 MP3 or WMA files. Wisely, Creative has deployed USB 2.0 technology as a means of getting music to and from a computer, as the thought of trying to fill up 60GB over a USB 1.1 cable is enough to bring us out in a cold sweat.

Practically, high capacity players actually live or die on their interface, as there's little point in storing 15,000 or so songs if you can't easily locate the ones you want to hear. Creative has, to be fair, done quite a good job here, although it's not yet at iPod standards.

A scroll wheel on the right hand side of the unit is your main weapon for browsing through your portable music library, and you depress the wheel to make your selection. You can sort tracks by album, artist, genre or playlist (although we found it didn't always successfully import a playlist), and you're also armed with a back button to help you reverse through the menu system, and a play/pause button for good measure. Further side-mounted controls allow you to skip tracks, control the volume and just turn the thing off.

Hidden within the Zen Xtra's menu system are options such as a sleep timer, skins, time scaling (to speed up or slow down playback) and environmental settings to customise your audio output. All are, in truth, pretty much take it or leave it features, but nonetheless they're effective.

All of this technology is imprisoned in a sleek, white casing, and a 'designer pouch' is also bundled in the box to help protect the player from the elements. The earphones are, however, a bit basic and not very comfortable. On a more positive note, Creative's MediaSource is a decent enough audio management package, although the true connoisseur may prefer the likes of MusicMatch Jukebox.

Bottom line? A very good MP3 player that's not quite as sleek and intuitive as the iPod it clearly aspires to be, but doesn't fall far short. And that capacity should keep all but the scariest music collector extremely pleased.

Desirable, bountiful and continually improving, Creative's Zen Xtra Jukebox isn't quite the number one choice, but it's worthy of serious consideration.