iRiver iFP-180T

The iRiver iFP-180T is the latest small, solid-state digital music player to join an already saturated market. The difference is that at £150 for the 128Mb model, it's more expensive than most but those extra pounds do buy you a couple of extra features.

First up is the built-in radio. This is FM-only but scanning for stations is commendably easy and you can store pre-sets for your favourite stations.

The headphone lead doubles up as the aerial and reception can be patchy but it works well with a strong signal. The built-in microphone is less useful, if only because voice recordings sound like they were made in a box, underwater.

Music-wise, the iFP-180T can handle both MP3 and WMA, and sound quality is very good. Unfortunately, the fiddly menu system makes playing tracks more complicated than it should be. More unfortunate still, is that the same applies to getting music onto the device in the first place. Rather than simply plugging the iFP-180T into a USB port and dragging MP3s onto its folder, you're forced to use a dedicated music transfer application. This is simple enough but in our opinion, wholly unnecessary and the iFP-180T would be better without it.

Contact: iRiver
www.iriver.com