Mention portable music players today and many will instantly reply ‘iPod’. Ironically, the same people would probably have pointed at you and laughed if, a few short years ago, you’d suggested that Apple would eventually become the biggest name in portable music.

And who could blame them? Back then, Sony’s ‘Walkman’ was the byword for music on the go.

Well, after the wilderness years, the Walkman is back. The NW-A1000 is the company’s first real contender in an iPod-dominated world.

The first thing you’ll notice is that Sony’s creative team has been working overtime to come up with a design cool enough to challenge the current market leader.

Available in a range of different colours, the Walkman has pleasantly rounded edges and looks like a little blob of liquid metal. Many people who see it make the mistake of thinking there’s no screen. It’s there, but the clever design keeps it hidden until you actually need it to display something.

The screen is fairly low-resolution and monochrome rather than colour but, since it’s not intended for photos or video, this isn’t much of a problem.

The unit sits snugly into the palm of your hand and is ever-so-slightly heavier than you might expect. This is because the new Walkman contains a hard disk instead of flash memory, which is more commonly found in smaller players.

The version we tested had a 6Gb hard disk – enough for about 4,000 songs – although a larger 20Gb version (NW-A3000, £199) is also available.

Transferring songs is done via a USB cable and using the media player software provided. Sony’s music application does many of the things iTunes can, such as copy and save CDs, create playlists and provide access to Sony’s own online music store.

Like its predecessors, the supplied media software is still clunky to use. But while iTunes may be easier to operate, the Sony software is simpler to use than Windows Media Player.

Battery life is pretty good, with around 20 hours of play on a full charge. This puts most iPods to shame and is definitely a strong selling point for the NW-A1000. Plus, this device is easy to control, with a simple Home menu screen to scroll through, along with a play/pause button, four-way directional pad and Options, Back, Volume and Hold controls all integrated discretely into the design.

The NW-A1000 is compatible with several different digital music formats, including MP3, ATRAC3 and WMA (with an additional firmware upgrade), but not AAC or copy-protected formats downloaded from iTunes or Napster .

Perhaps the best thing about the new Sony Walkman is just how great it actually sounds. Music is rich, warm and realistic sounding, particularly when it has been encoded using Sony’s ATRAC3plus format.

On top of that, you can find the 6Gb NW-A1000 in the shops for at least £10 less than the 4Gb iPod nano, all of which makes it a very tempting alternative to the Apple equivalent.