Product Reviews

This square, white player is light, looks smart and comes with headphones similar to an iPod's. It supports a wide range of audio files, but it also plays many video formats. It's easy to navigate its menus using the slightly fiddly joystick. Audio files don't appear in the directory listings if you select video from the menu, and vice versa.

The E858's 5.1cm screen isn't too large, but videos look surprisingly detailed on it, thanks to a high 720x480-pixel resolution. The player and its headphones also sound fine, though many of the preset equalisations are awful. We were disappointed by the player's battery life, which was depressingly close to Aigo's 51/2 hour claim.

Though the E858 is a decent player, slicker competitors such as iRiver's U10 last more than three times as long on one charge.