Toshiba Stor.E TV+

Toshiba is known for making both TVs and laptop computers, so it makes sense for the company to produce a multimedia player that acts as a bridge between those two different types of device.

The Stor.E TV+ is a big hard disk that can be used to store photos, music and video files. But like rivals such as the popular WD TV it also includes HDMI and audio sockets so you can connect it to a flat-screen TV and play music and video files from the comfort of your sofa using the supplied remote control.

We tested a Stor.E TV+ that costs £170 and has a 1TB (1,000GB) hard disk, but there is also a 2TB model available for £200. It has three USB ports – connect a USB memory key or hard disk to one and you can transfer or play the files on it.

There is also a network socket for attaching it to your home network, although Toshiba's jargon-heavy manual did a poor job of explaining the device's networking features. In fact, it can stream music and video from any computer on your home network.

Once you have connected it to the TV, the Stor.E TV+ presents its main Home screen, which contains a simple series of icons you can select using the handheld remote control included in the box. These icons allow you to browse through the contents of its hard disk, or select other options such as adjusting the brightness and contrast for video playback.

The Stor.E TV+ works with a wide range of file formats, and coped well with all our music and video files apart from some Divx video clips it wouldn't play. However, its interface is rather basic and didn't make it easy to browse through large collections of music and video files. It allows you to view the contents of individual folders on the hard disk – rather like Windows Explorer on a PC – but you can't browse the music collection by album title or genre.

Technically, the Stor.E TV+ worked well, and it is reasonably priced, but the unintuitive interface and poor manual impair its quality.