Packard Bell AudioKey

When we reviewed Packard Bell's original AudioKey, we criticised its chunky build and paltry 32Mb of memory. A year later and the second generation of AudioKey has arrived with a slimmer build and four times the memory.

Out of the box, the AudioKey is incredibly simple to use. Once plugged into a USB port, it's just a case of dragging and dropping your music onto the player. The AudioKey supports MP3 and WMA formats and can also store other files.

ID3 track data, battery life and other information is displayed on the small screen. However, the screen is not backlit, so you won't be able to read it in the dark.

The five EQ settings make a noticeable difference to sound quality and the voice recording quality is excellent. The music playback volume is very loud too.

On the negative side, you have to delve into the menu system to activate simple functions such as shuffle or repeat. It also uses standard USB, which is slow compared to USB 2, but transferring 128Mb of files still only takes about seven minutes.

Contact: Packard Bell 01628 512456
www.packardbell.co.uk