Haier HV18A-4G Video MP3 Player

The HV18A-4G measures 3.5 by 1.5 by 0.25 inches and has a 1.8-inch, full-color TFT LCD, as well as a nifty touch-panel keypad. Featuring an audio-playback time of 30 hours, this sleek MP3 player also plays videos, offers an FM transmitter, and provides a voice recorder. The power/lock switch is on the side, while the volume buttons, fast-forward/rewind controls, and OK and Menu buttons are on the touch panel.

Video playback is decent, considering that the screen is just 1.8 inches. The player comes with ArcSoft Media Converter 3 for turning regular video files into the supported .smv format. The ArcSoft program, which took about 25 minutes to convert a 30MB file.

You can add music and pictures to the player by dragging and dropping the files in Windows Explorer or by synchronizing through Windows Media Player. Supported formats include MP3, WMA, and OGG for audio, and JPEG and BMP for pictures. You can't sync playlists from Windows Media Player,

In addition to the earbuds and the ArcSoft Media Converter 3 software, the HV18A-4G comes with a USB 2.0 cable.

The touch panel is just a bit hypersensitive (luckily, the device has a hold button), but otherwise the affordable Haier HV18A-4G is a decent little MP3 player with great battery life. The main thing that holds this device back is its small capacity--it's available only in 4GB and 8GB versions, neither of which is enough space for most people's music and video libraries.