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My quest for an mp3 player continues, and next in line is this sweetly named offering from BenQ. The Joybee gets off to a good start in my opinion because it’s encased in a metal shell. This will give it the edge over many plastic mp3 players that will inevitably succumb to the rigours off every day use. The anodised finish also gives it an air of quality while those concerned with personal grooming will undoubtedly put the mirrored facia to good use.

Obviously it’s not all about good looks and inside there’s 128MB of flash memory, which is enough to store around an album’s worth of music ripped at 192kbps. You can of course store more or fewer mp3s depending on the level of compression used and the quality you want. The bundled QMusic software allows you to drop this down to 128kbps or up it to 256kbps ready for when you convert your CDs to the mp3 format. The process of doing this is straightforward thanks to the clear and simple drag and drop design. This program can also be used to play CDs and mp3 files, and to create playlists. In addition, it can be configured to automatically update the player upon connection so that only new songs that have been added to the Joybee playlist will be transferred.

That’s not all this Joybee has to offer, as I could also update the firmware and LCD screen font using the system update program. Once the relevant files have been downloaded from BenQ’s website it was just a case of browsing for the files and uploading them.

Furthermore, this unit can store and display text files. This function, in conjunction with the lyrics editing and conversion tool, permits the user to create, save and synchronize the lyrics line by line to each individual track. The process of doing this is a bit laborious and involves inserting sync points at the beginning of each sentence in the song. Once this is done you are left with a lyric file that can then be combined with the mp3 track to form an mpr file that will automatically display the appropriate lyrics at the correct moment when the track is played.

Sound long winded yet? Well, it is and to be honest I don’t see this becoming a killer feature. Nor for that matter will the ability to change the startup and shutdown screens, bearing in mind that the blue backlit LCD is not a colour one. That said, if you’re an eBook fanatic then you can upload some of these and read them while on the road, although be prepared to read a three line display that copes with about three to four words per line.

Still, that’s not taking anything away from the Joybee 150, which at the end of the day has plenty of functionality. It’s small and only weighs around 40g thanks to the built-in rechargeable lithium battery. While this cannot be charged by drawing power from the PCs USB port, there is a separate multi-region power adapter for that. A full charge takes around three hours to complete, and this should be good for 10 hours worth of playback time. After three minutes of inactivity it will automatically shut down to save energy.