When you first pick up the iRiver PMP 140 you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a new games console, as its design is roughly a cross between a Gameboy and the old Sega Game Gear.

On the other hand, measuring 5.4 x 3.3 x 1.2 inches and weighing just under 300g, this portable multimedia player is not the kind of gadget you're just going to slip into your top pocket. Significantly, one of the two 'handles' on the back houses a two-stage stand (the other contains the battery), clearly indicating this is a player to be propped on your desk or side table rather than carried at the hip.

Two sets of controls lie either side of the 3.5-inch TFT screen, the latter having a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and maximum frame rate of 30fps. The PMP 140 has five basic functions: video playback, photo storage, music playback, FM radio and audio record (via microphone or external equipment).

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On the video side (alas there's no video record function), supported file types are AVI, ASF and MPEG and it's Xvid, Divx and MPEG-1 compatible as well as MPEG-4 Video compliant. It comes with its own Media Converter software but is unable to convert MPEG-2 files. Windows Media Player 10.0 files are also incompatible, which is a major flaw.

However, once you do convert the available video files, the quality of the colour picture is admirable. There's no zoom facility but the image is sharp, the colours vivid and the built-in speaker gives a respectable sound quality, provided you're in a relatively quiet environment. An RCA cable is provided to allow you to play out to a TV or monitor.

Photo transfers are easily manageable, with the most common types of image (JPG, BMP) supported, and it's a simple case of drag-'n'-drop from the PC using the supplied USB 2.0 connector (there is an additional USB 1.1 host input as well). But a slideshow facility should have been included as standard.

The MP3 music player facility is equal in size (40GB or roughly 10,000 tracks) to the iPod and will play WAV, WMA, ASF, and MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3 files. There's a 5-preset EQ but as with the video play mode, there's no compatibility with Windows Media Player. The audio record via the microphone works well, though, and there is a useful line in for recording from external sources, i.e. direct from an MP3 player.

In one area where it scores highly - the FM radio with up to 20 presets and generally excellent sound reception - there's yet another surprising omission. It's impossible to record any radio sound. A bit of a oversight when you have all that storage capacity.

iRiver has tried to trump the iPod by providing the same storage capacity with many extra features. But despite those impressive features, this feels like a work in progress rather than the finished article.