Aiwa HZ-WS2000

Posted by T3 Online on Mon 22 Oct 2007

It's thin, it's shiny, it's... damn pricey

When Aiwa first announced this tiny hard disk player, it looked like a bit of a winner. However, in the months it's taken to actually make it onto the shelves, much of its thunder has been stolen by the likes of the iPod mini (T3 101, 5/5) and the Rio Carbon (see left).

Nevertheless, in the flesh, Aiwa's offering does indeed look very impressive. The mirrored metal case may scratch far too easily, but it does look gorgeous when box-fresh. This is also one of the smallest hard disk players we've ever seen.

Aiwa has been able to keep the device incredibly thin by doing two things. The first is removing the display from the unit itself and instead placing it on the remote control, much like Cowon did on the iAUDIO M3 (T3 99, 3/5). The second is using a tiny one-inch 1.5GB drive.

Unfortunately, the drive's small capacity is also the player's main weakness. The device costs more than Apple's highly sought-after iPod mini, yet offers much less storage capacity. You can almost hear the gun go off as Aiwa shoots itself in the foot with that one.

It's a real shame, because in many ways this is a good little player. The small size is a real boon, it has a okay battery life at eight hours and the interface is easy to use. However, when you stack it up against rivals such as the mini and the Carbon, it looks incredibly overpriced.