Retractable? The only answer to the inventory in your everyday bag of essentials! How many of us have dreaded the untangling of wired earphones after work and have vented out the anger, by screaming in silence? Well, rest assured as Sony have reliably invented the cure to music lover's one-off daily Tourette problem with the MDR Q68 model. Flair and compactness was the initial goal, and then Sony went one step further to enhance consumerism for the busy, yet vain human lifestyle.

Street-wise and wanting to look like you're into the 'tech-know' is a disguisable attribute this piece of apparel equips. Obtainable in different colours to suit consumers with strict preferences, supplemented with elegant buttons on adjacent sides of each earpiece reeling in a respective wire to narrow down the design to make it 'pocketable' in order to deter wire-mingling.

Bringing out the best of both worlds, the MDR Q68 introduces a squeezed-down hybrid of both the headphone and earphone categories, creating something that looks good while you're on the go. The MDR Q68 clips neatly onto your collar when you're not listening. The sound quality delivers good bass and handles any equaliser menu very well, surprisingly, for a budget pair of earphones.

The Sony MDR Q68 can easily be picked up for less than £20 including tax at online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, a reasonable price as a replacement of most portable media players available. Indefinitely a bargain, as opposed to the default iPod monstrosity supplied! Not quite cordless nor the tech-savvy person's accessory of choice, but for those who care about:

- Appearance,
- Clustered bag with everything atop one another,
- Financial damage,
- Quality a slight notch above par;

Sony's MDR Q68s are without a doubt not a 'bit of kit' to be missed out on!

Written by Bobby Cheung