Review: Audible online audio book store

For those who want to broaden the range of material on their portable audio players beyond the Top 40 hits, websites like Audible are a boon.

The UK sister site to Audible.com, Audible offers a wide selection of audio books for download on either a one-off or subscription basis.

Once you've paid for a book, it's available to download indefinitely from your online account.

You can find extensive samples of each book on the website, which allows you to vet them before buying.

This is most welcome given the possible scope for a sub-standard narrator to ruin a listener's enjoyment of an otherwise great book.

This feature makes excellent use of the online retail environment and sets Audible apart from conventional book stores.

In contrast to competitors such as Simply Audiobooks, Audible's books are available in four formats, varying in file size and, as a consequence, quality.

The levels of quality are designated (in ascending order) as telephone, AM radio, FM radio or mp3.

This will be a major advantage for dial-up users, as downloads of unabridged novels with a playing time of six-plus hours, at mp3 quality can run up to 100MB, which can take a long time to download.

Streaming of the audio books is an added bonus and is available in any one of the four quality levels.

Most, though not all, titles can be burned to CD, providing more flexible playback options.

Prior to signing up it's important to ensure you have an audio device capable of playing Audible's proprietary file formats.

Audible has a list of compatible players, but not all can play each of the four quality formats mentioned above.

For example, the Creative Muvo can only play AM and FM radio.

Beyond books, you can subscribe on a monthly or yearly basis to a number of newspapers and periodicals including The Times, the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American.

Although you are encouraged to download Audible's software you are not prompted to install and run the download manager prior to beginning a download, which can lead to some confusion.

Every so often, when navigating the site we came across broken images, links and even streams.

Given the potential of this service it doesn't deserve to be let down by such easily rectifiable flaws on the website.

Audible faces some stiff competition in the form of Apple's iTunes, whose financial clout enabled the company to secure exclusive rights to the Harry Potter series of books.

Despite this, Audible remains affordable, boasts a range of 8,000 titles and is certainly worth checking out, especially now that there's a free trial period and an Ipod Shuffle for members who commit to a 12-month subscription.

System requirements:
Compatible audio player
Internet connection