MobiBlu DAH-1200

With the runaway success of Apple's iPod, competitors large and small have rushed to the MP3 market in the past 2 years to cash in on the phenomenon. One of the newer entries in the field is the MobiBlu series by Hyun Won, a line of stylish, less expensive alternatives to high-end players by iRiver, Dell, and Apple. MobiBlu's flagship flash player, the DAH-1200, boasts an impressive range of extra features that other players don't offer, but also cuts a few corners to get there.

The player has a compact, elegant design, measuring only 1.5 x 3 inches-small enough to hide in your hand-and weighs a mere 1.3 ounces. It's also versatile, doing double duty as an FM radio player and voice recorder, and delivering quality sound on both fronts.

One unique feature of the DAH-1200 is a lyrics playback function that allows you to follow the words to a song while it's playing. While this is a great idea, the DAH-1200 requires you to not only enter all the lyrics manually into your PC, you must also synchronize each line to a time code in the song-an exercise in frustration and tedium for all but the most dedicated.

Downloading songs to the DAH-1200 was a snap because it doesn't require any clunky extra software. The button navigation was somewhat cryptic at first, but after a getting acquainted with it, we found it easy to switch modes and formats.

The biggest downside of the MobiBlu is that its convenient size and weight come at the expense of capacity. The 256MB DAH-1200 will set you back $119, while comparably priced models from Creative offer a meatier 512MB.

The MobiBlu DAH-1200 is one of the lightest flash players you can buy with a built-in FM tuner. But the device's nearly useless lyrics feature and higher price prevent us from recommending it over other similar players.