TrekStor vibez review

Performance
The vibez' sound quality is well above average. We pumped some pounding dance from the likes of Pendulum and some melodic classics from Mark Knopfler, not to mention some thrashings of riotous progressive metal from Dream Theater. The vibez excelled with each performance, giving no frequency too much or too little attention.

Only the truly hardened sceptic or nay-sayer would put this player down for its abilities with audio reproduction. MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV and FLAC music files all sound great, though FLAC -- the lossless flavour of the bunch -- sounds better still.

Curiously curvaceous: the vibez is an unusually curvy player

Even the supplied headphones are excellent. Okay, they're no competitor to a model costing £50 or more, but for bundled headphones they're truly high performing, and they should be -- they're made by Sennheiser, the German audio specialists. It's gestures like this that show the passion behind making this the best-sounding player you can get for the money.

Battery life is rated at 20 hours, though our tests with average usage ran the battery dry in just under 18 hours. Transferring 1GB of music to the player's microdrive took 5 minutes over USB 2.0. The player is compatible with Mac OS X and Linux, as well as Windows. Rejoice!

Conclusion
The TrekStor vibez is an excellent MP3 player. It's a feature-rich device that's built with sound quality in mind. Its unusual design may be off-putting to some -- indeed, we didn't like it when we first held it -- but it's something that can grow on you, and is at least worth trying. The support for lossless audio and open-source codecs, along with great sound quality and plenty of playback options, are a welcome addition to a market stale with players that support only MP3 and WMA formats.

If the rubber wheel is off-putting, perhaps consider an iPod. The Click Wheel works just the same. But if you're after a similar wealth of features, Creative's or Cowon's more recent players are a safe choice for a similar price.

Supplier: Advanced MP3Players.com

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Nick Hide