Review: Cowon iAudio D2 portable audio player

It's easy to buy a tiny FM radio that you can listen to on the way to work, but if you've upgraded to a digital (DAB) radio at home you might not want to go back to the poorer choice of FM stations.

Cowon's iAudio D2 is a tiny DAB radio that also plays music and video files. Confusingly, it's a different player to the D2 of the same name that we looked at a few months ago.

This D2 has a 2.5in (6cm) touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 320x240 pixels. Volume is controlled by buttons on the top, but most other functions are activated by tapping the screen. This makes it easy to use if you're sitting down, but fairly hard to control when walking around. A triangle-shaped tool, attached to the player by an elastic strip, can be used as a stylus for tapping the screen, or as a stand to prop up the player when using it on a table.

The DAB feature works surprisingly well: after scanning for channels we were able to quickly select between dozens of stations. The large display shows information, such as the current song being played. Our only complaint is that the digital radio only works with the supplied headphones, which contain the aerial. After plugging in our own set of better-quality headphones we couldn't receive a single station. Oddly enough, the standard FM radio worked well with any headphones.

Copying music files to the player is easy, and the touch-screen display makes it simple to select albums or tracks to play. It can't play music bought from the iTunes store or subscription services such as Napster, however. With a bright, clear screen the D2 is surprisingly good for video files, too. A supplied utility converts video files for the player, and there's an SD card slot for more storage.

At £170, the D2 costs significantly more than Apple's 4GB iPod Nano, but with a DAB radio and SD slot it can do much more too. If you want a tiny video player, a portable DAB radio or both, it's a great buy.

Vista compatible: Yes