Packard Bell Audiostar

The Audiostar is yet another portable audio player to hit the market. Housing 1GB of flash memory, it will hold roughly 320 tracks in mp3 and wma formats, including protected wma files.

However, it’s not compatible with Napster To Go, a service available to selected audio players that allows you to download unlimited songs to your player for £14.95 a month.

The 1.8in screen will display jpeg images, but due to the low resolution we don’t think many people will take advantage of this. The poor viewing angles also hold it back.

Packard Bell has tried to jazz up the interface, but the garish colours and confusing icons don’t do it any favours. The animated dancing girl prancing around while you listen to your tunes is bizarre and leaves you with the feeling Packard Bell was running out of ideas.

Another disappointment is the interface. Working your way around the various menus is ridiculously hard, despite having the manual to hand, and the whole device feels very unresponsive.

There’s no FM radio, but you get a voice recorder and a line-in mp3 encoding feature. A basic version of Tetris is included, which should keep you amused for all of five minutes. At just 10 hours, battery life is low compared to most other audio players these days.

The Audiostar’s size and weight are good points, but when you consider that Creative’s 1GB Zen Nano Plus can be picked up for £79, and the 2GB Apple Ipod Nano is available for just £10 more than the Audiostar, Packard Bell’s latest creation looks shaky to say the least.

Neither the Creative nor Apple model can display photos (not that the Audiostar does a good job of it), but they’re infinitely easier to use and, in our opinion, far better options.