NHJ MPM-202

Viewing movies is easy: select what you want to watch and press OK. There is an annoying lack of a bookmark feature, so if your viewing is interrupted, it can't be resumed. Instead, you'll have to fast forward through the programme to return to where you were.

Screen quality is as expected for a device of this size; it's not going to compete with a portable DVD player or notebook, but it does a good job of reproducing recordings to an acceptable quality level.

Music playback is straightforward but there is no playlist support, so if you want your tunes in a particular running order they will have to be organised that way before they are transferred to the player.

The player won't scroll long file names either, and will instead just display the first few words, and it doesn't display tags, although it does support the extra text information carried in digital photo files.

Sound quality is good, even when we ramped it to the highest volume level. The voice recorder is fine for making personal memos, but it won't pick up anything further away than a metre or so.

Fully charged, the battery should last for about three and a half hours in video playback, which is good. It comes with headphones, a cradle, an infrared remote control, a carrying pouch and file conversion software for unsupported media formats.

In all, the MPM-202 performs well for a device of its kind, with a very reasonable price tag. With heaps of features and massive storage space, it's bound to keep you entertained for a long time.

However, if you're in the market for a portable media player we'd keep our eyes peeled for the Sony PSP reviewed next issue.