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The Joybee 150 is Benq's latest contribution to the overcrowded MP3 player market. Unlike the Joybee 120 - one of the smallest MP3 players we've come across - the 150 is bulkier, coming with 256MB of memory to store digital audio files.
It supports both MP3 and wma and doubles up as removable storage, which brings us to our first moan - file transfer speed. Perhaps we're taking our super-fast Firewire and USB2 connections for granted, but when you're waiting almost nine minutes to shift a measly 256MB of data over USB1.1, you can become impatient.
That said though, Benq has included an Itunes look-alike application for managing and transferring music. Drag and drop your desired songs to the application or set a music folder to sync with the Joybee each time it's connected. Here you can also create playlists and rip audio CDs to MP3 at bit rates of up to 256Kbits/sec.
Operating the player takes a bit of getting used to, as the device is crammed with buttons. However, the big backlit LCD screen supports large fonts, which makes things easy to read. It's a case of weaving through the menus to get the music going, but once achieved, the sound quality is impressive, especially for such a small device. There are eight EQ settings for MP3 playback and five for wma.
Other nifty features include an integrated FM radio with 30 presets, a built-in microphone and a line-in socket for analogue recording. The options for this are very comprehensive, allowing you to capture audio between 32-224Kbits/sec, in stereo and in mpeg1 or mpeg2.
It also comes with an in-line remote control, headphones and rechargeable batteries.
In all, this is a good player with lots of extras that will appeal to those who don't want to carry their whole music collection in their back pocket.
Contact: Benq 01442 301 000
www.benq.co.uk
Specifications:
- 256MB of memory
- Supports MP3, wma
- USB1.1
- FM radio, line-in
See also:
All MP3 Players
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