Photo Courtesy: BenQ

If you take a peek in the digital audio market today, you will find that hard drive based players are the latest trend in the audio industry. Consumer electronics enthusiasts really liked the idea of hard drive players with Apple’s iPod. Apple took advantage of the iPod’s design and before they knew it, it became a strong part of today’s culture. More than likely, even Apple couldn’t have anticipated the success of its iPod, but it happened. In order to compete against the iPod, companies like Sony and Creative started offering similar looking players with similar functionalities. While everything is going well in this part of the industry, there are still those who want something economical, something that can easily be carried and used when doing regular day-to-day tasks. In order to cater to these types of users, BenQ seems to have an answer with its Joybee 102R digital audio player.

The first thing you will notice about the Joybee is its odd name, but BenQ has a history of bringing products with names that really make no sense. Then again, the Joybee is a unique player and may very well suit its name. The Joybee is the smallest portable audio player offering from BenQ. The player itself is a small and rather stylistic product that will more than likely impress those who are looking to adopt this in their daily lives. In fact, it comes in three colors (purple, green and orange) and may even match with quite a few clothing items. This could be an added bonus to a selected few.

The Joybee measures around 4.1cm in height and 0.8cm in width, which does in fact, makes it one of the smallest MP3 players in the market. According to BenQ, the idea of Joybee was inspired via royal balls in European palaces; it’s more or less a combination of necklaces and pocket watches of the era.

Like many of the smaller audio players, Joybee 102R features a rechargeable ion battery for up to 10 hours of playback time. The player will get connected to the computer via an USB 2.0 cable, and it comes with proprietary software that helps manage the play list. Perhaps one of the exciting features for users would be the embedded USB 2.0 support. Thanks to the improved standards, you would now be able to transfer data back and forth in a much more efficient manner.

The Joybee 102R supports three sizes: 64MB, 128MB and 256MB. It also has support for MP3, WMA and WAV file formats at 8K to 320K bit rate acceptance. Even though the player does support Windows media file formats, we highly advise against it due to the file size. For example, if you have a 50MB song in WMA format, you will only be able to upload a single song to the 64MB MP3 player. In other features, the Joybee only weighs around 16g and works under Windows 98SE and higher.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Joybee is somewhat limited in features, as the equalizer adjustments are missing. This would certainly turnout to be a drawback in the player for those who really like to tinker with such settings. The Joybee varies in prices (according to the size you choose), but it generally costs between $80.00 and $139.99, which also make it a more affordable choice in the market.

As far as the size, looks and the weight are concerned, it looks like BenQ may have a winner on their hands. However, since we have not tested the unit, we recommend that you read reviews of the discussed product and check out its performance. If the performance is to be hinted by its desirable looks, this could become a fashion accessory among the selected few.