Apacer Audio Steno NV400

MP3 players are so commonplace that anything new to the market has to offer something a bit different.

Apacer has thrown in a voice recorder and SD memory card slot to its 128Mb player but, unfortunately, it's not enough to set it apart from the crowd.

Firstly, the NV400 has a similar footprint to a comb and about as thick as a box of matches. It's not the ideal product to slip into a pocket. It also suffers from flimsy build quality. The power button in our review model was unresponsive and felt as though it was partially jammed in.

The NV400 also has one of the most ridiculous USB ports we've seen - an eject button springs the connector out of the base of the unit so that it can be plugged into the charging cradle. It doesn't feel well built and pushing it back often led to the battery cover sliding off.

Playback is easy to control and MP3s are stored in alphabetical order using the artist name information in the ID3 tag. Sound quality is acceptable but not astounding. However, the EQ settings are worthless and distort any track.

The voice recorder does work well and recordings in can be read by any Windows PC. At £100 it's reasonable value for money but there are far better players out there.

Contact: Davoom 01344 887609
www.davoom.com