Review If Panasonic is to be believed, portable gadgets are no longer just about practicality - they're stylish fashion statements to be worn as clothing accessories. So the SV-SD75 Audio Player is part of Panasonic's E-wear range and it can be worn as a watch or a pendant. In either of these guises it's not that appealing, but as a small gadget for playing music it's not that bad. We'd suggest taking it out of the blue plastic watch strap and sticking it in your pocket instead.

The SV-SD75 weighs only 55g and the metal case gives it a sturdy feel. It has have the advantage of a large LCD screen for displaying track information. Panasonic has sensibly made it easy to use by keeping hardware controls to a minimum, but despite this the five buttons and mode dial provide a wealth of playback options.

Content is stored on a 64MB Secure Digital card and a card reader is supplied for connection to a PC. The card can store an hour of music, but the player has a nifty trick up its sleeve to squeeze on more tunes. When the card reader is hooked up via the bundled Real Jukebox software there's a choice of saving songs as MP3s or the slightly superior ACC (Advanced Audio Coding) format. You can also change the bit rate so it's possible to store between one hour and two hours of music, depending on the format and download speed used. WAV files can be converted to ACC but you can't play WMA (Windows media audio) files as they are.

On the down side, the SV-SD75 isn't cheap, and the features of the Secure Digital card are not explained fully in the manual. Basically, when you use this medium to store songs from 'legitimate' sources, they have a limited lifespan and can only be used a certain number of times. For more information on Secure Digital, visit www.sdcard.org.

The SV-SD75 is innovative and well-built, with a wide array of features for such a small device - just don't make the mistake of wearing it as a watch. ®

Info

Price: £248
Contact: 0500 404 041
Website: www.panasonic.co.uk

Specs

Dimensions: 50x15x49mm
Weight: 55g
Warranty: One-year return-to-base
Battery: AAA
Other: 64MB Secure Digital card, SD card reader, Panasonic Media Manager software

All details correct at time of publication.

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