The explosion in popularity of MP3 music has spawned a whole new generation of portable music players, most of which allow you to transfer MP3 files from your PC and store these in a form of solid-state memory. The inhibiting factor in these type of players has always been the excessive cost of the memory itself, often accounting for up to two-thirds the cost of the player.

The DAV310 from A-MAX Technology circumvents this limitation by being able to play MP3 tracks straight off a CD - just like your PC can. Though much larger than your average MP3 player with CompactFlash or SmartMedia memory cards, this capability has steadily gained support from manufacturers of traditional audio equipment, such as hi-fi and car stereos, as it doesnt involve significant hardware modifications from a standard CD player. A-MAX even goes one better by adding VCD (Video CD) playback capabilities into the DAV310.

This means that you can hook the DAV310 up to your TV and watch VCD movies. VCD may not be a format thats been very popular here in Australia, but its been widely adopted in Asia as an alternative to VHS and DVD. VCD is a far cry from DVD in terms of image quality and resolution. Adopting MPEG-1 compression for video data, VCDs are now distributed on standard CD-ROMs, often necessitating two CDs for a feature-length movie.

The resultant playback quality youll get on your TV will depend largely on the quality of the capture as VCD quality varies, but the limited hardware grunt of the DAV310 seemed to become more apparent once the unit heated up with the unit seizing up on occasions.

In form, the DAV310 looks just like any other conventional portable CD player being slightly larger than two CD jewel cases stacked on top of each other. At a distance, the pearl-white finish with bright-orange highlights on each side is a cheery and welcome change to the ominous dark greys and blacks we are accustomed to. On closer inspection however, the flash of orange is only a thin veneer and easily scratched off when bumped.

The infrared remote control is a handy addition to the standard accessories, which includes earphones, battery charger and cables to connect the player to the TV. As most portable CD players are likely to be knocked around, many are equipped with anti-shock memory buffers - which reads ahead and stores upcoming information into memory - and the DAV310 is no exception. The specification suggests that the NAPA player can store up to 30 seconds of MP3 data and 20 seconds of CD audio. While the buffer worked fine for MP3 tracks, it didnt seem to have any effect on regular CDs.

What was most frustrating was that on occasion when playing MP3s the track skipped to the next one for no explicable reason.

The A-MAX NAPA DAV310s concept is a good idea, being a true portable multimedia player, but its execution leaves much to be desired. However, even if used purely as a portable CD and MP3 player, the DAV310 comes relatively cheap compared to the solid state alternatives. Just walk softly.

Simon Tsang