iriver Lplayer

The Lplayer from iriver will seem familiar to some people. At first glance, it looks like a smaller iriver Clix. The two players use the same D*click technology the company's term for its innovative, practically button free design. You navigate the good looking interface by pressing down on the sides and corners of the tiny player's screen.

The Lplayer comes in 4GB ($109.99 list) and 8GB ($159.99) capacities with lower price tags than both the iPod nano and the Clix.

One thing missing from the Lplayer is the Clix's excellent support for Rhapsody, but for the price, the player offers solid file support wrapped in a good looking package.

The 2.36 by 1.69 by 0.51 inch (HWD), 1.45 ounce Lplayer is truly diminutive. The nano is thinner, but the two devices' screens are identical in size and resolution (2 inches, 320 by 240 pixels), and both are easily pocketable. If you want a small device for occasional on the go video watching, it'll do just fine.

The only trick is figuring out how to hold the Lplayer so you don't block the screen, which occupies almost the entire front surface. Also, using the lock switch on the rear panel is essential, so that you don't accidentally click the screen and pause or fast forward, for example.

The player's only true buttons, for volume and power, reside on the side panel. There's a mic for voice recording, a lanyard hole, and a mini USB port for syncing with your PC's music and video library. File support for the Lplayer is laudable. There's no AAC support, but you get MP3, WMA, and for the music snobs and lossless junkies, OGG and FLAC.

Video support is limited to WMV9 SP, Xvid SP, and MPEG-4 SP. You'll need the video converter (software that's on the included CD, along with the manual) to load other types of files onto the Lplayer. My results with the video conversion software were mixed. A WMV HD video loaded without a problem, but its aspect ratio was off.

A full length film in Xvid format, on the other hand, converted perfectly and looked just fine on the tiny but bright screen. Photo support is better than you get on most players: JPEG, BMP, PNG, and GIF.