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JVC Alneo XA-F57 'basic' MP3 player

Low in features, but not in price

There's a built in lithium-ion battery which according to JVC is good for up to 11 hours of playback, although this has to be taken with a pinch of salt. The battery is charged via the USB connector, which could be a problem if you're away from a computer for a longer period of time, but this is a common issue with many MP3 players.

So, back to the menu, the options are music, navigate, line in, delete, about, reset and set. The first one takes you to the default music playback screen, while navigate lets you browse the files on the XA-F57. Line in is the recording mode and you have to press the record button to start the recording. The next three menu options speaks for themselves, I hope.

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Under the set menu option you can change the equaliser options - there are six pre-sets and one custom option. You can also change the play mode, sleep timer, and various screen settings, as well as the recording quality and the language of the XA-F57's menus.

I've seen better navigation systems, but thanks to Creative Labs and Apple we might just end up seeing even worse implementations due to the current law suit over the Zen menu system. It takes a little getting used to, but the XA-F57 is not unusable by any means.

The supplied headphones aren't great, but you can wear the XA-F57 around the neck once you've figured out how it all works. There's a small lanyard in the end of the headphones that attaches to the XA-F57, which was quite tricky to attach. Once fastened, there's a small metal ball which slides up and down the headphone wires, used to secure everything behind your neck.

This means that quite a lot of weight is relying on the headphone cables, but one would presume that JVC has tested this thoroughly before release. Saying that, at 39g the XA-F57 is far from heavy, but it seems like a rather odd setup either which way.

The XA-F57 supports MP3, WMA and WMA DRM files. It can play back MP3s encoded at 8 to 320kbps and WMA files encoded at 32 to 192 kbps. You can synchronise the XA-F57 with Windows Media player and this has to be done for DRM files.

Verdict

Overall, the JVC Alneo XA-F57 isn't a terrible MP3 player, it might look somewhat "girly" but it does the job. However, its biggest flaw is the £79 retail price which is very expensive for a 512MB device, especially one as short on features as the XA-F57.

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JVC Alneo XA-F57 'basic' MP3 player

JVC's Alneo XA-F57 is far from the cutting edge - it's over priced and feature-weak. But it comes from a reputable brand...
Price: £79 RRP

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