I'm pretty sure the creative directors at Singapore-based Ollo Technologies had the word "revolutionary" floating about in their minds when they conceived theKube.

However, after spending a fortnight with this little device, theKube unfortunately falls short of being a revolution. In brief: theKube is a micro cube-shaped MP3 player.

My colleague Gabey describes it as a large dice. I prefer to describe it as a small sized tofu. Back to my point, when someone produces an MP3 player shaped like a tiny tofu (or a large dice), it's pretty clear that they intend for it to cause an impact in the MP3 player industry, one way or another.

Cute or not cute?

Ollo claims that theKube is the world's smallest MP3 player. Indeed, it is as tiny as it can get.

This miniature gadget weighs a mere 18g and is sized at 22m x 22m x 22m. Small?

I can safely say it's the smallest I've had my hands on. The test unit that arrived at our office was white in colour.

These cubes come in a range of five different colours – white, black, light blue, pink and yellow – all candy-like!

Caution… do not swallow! Ollo utilises its dice-like shape in an inventive way.

Whence on a dice, each face is marked with pips numbering from one to six; theKube’s different faces are creatively marked with the play/pause button, the on/off switch, "next track" button and the "previous track" button.

The tiny memory card slot (theKube uses the MicroSD card for memory storage) and the USB cable slot utilises one face.

While its cubic shape may come down as "cute" to some, one might change their mind after giving theKube a feel.

Its sharp edges and inner lines are rather unruly. The sharp edges might also poke you when putting this in your pocket while wearing tight jeans!

Also, a major missing fixture in this MP3 player is a "hold" button. I tried putting this in my jeans' pocket; and true enough, the songs skipped after I took a short jog.

So where else can you put it if not in your pocket? You could leave it hanging like a lanyard – if you're fine with it looking like you’re wearing a cube-shaped pendant.

Otherwise, you can still have it in your pocket, but that would mean no running with it in your jeans.

Tiny Terror

TheKube's plus points come from its sound quality and storage capabilities.

This minuscule thingamajig managed to squeeze an excellent sound system in it – a rather impressive achievement, considering that it's a basic MP3 player without sound enhancement settings like equaliser or bass boost.

The sound is very clear and crisp, and also loud (trust me; you won't be playing it on maximum!). My only sound-related issue with theKube is its earphones.

While Ollo gave its assurance in its press release that theKube's earphones are no ordinary "run-of-the-mill" plugs, our review unit’s plugs were spoilt only after a few hours of usage (only one ear was working!)

While this could probably just be a factory defect, its' quality remains questionable. Another highlight of theKube has to be its' storage capabilities.

While most MP3 players have its own hard drive with limited capacities, theKube uses a MicroSD card for storage – which allows up to 32GB of songs (that's a whooping 8,000 songs!) theKube is already equipped with a 2GB card – which is already sufficient enough for most users, but the hardcore ones can always expand by getting a bigger capacity card.

Revolutionary? Well, you get what you pay for.

For what it's worth, theKube retails at a highly affordable price of RM99.99.

Rough edges and bad earphones aside; theKube still has enough plus points to be considered as radical, but not enough to be revolutionary.

TheKube can be found at selected Giant outlets in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan and Johor Baru.