There's a single control button on the top of the frame, slots for CF and SD, SDHC, MMC, CF, xD, Memory Stick, and Memory Stick Pro Duo cards, a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left and right of the base, and a power button on the back below the built-in speakers and two USB connectors. All in all, this is a fairly generic, unassuming design with pretty good connectivity options.

The Infocast can play MP3, WAV, DRM-free WMA and ACC audio files, display JPEG, AVI, QuickTime, MPEG, MPEG-4, MPEG-4 H.264 and Flash Video images and video and includes widgets for Pandora, Photobucket, SHOUTcast Radio, The New York Times, an alarm clock, a music player, a photo viewer and a video player.

I wanted to like this device, I really did. The concept of information appliances that are cheap, flexible, provide lots of functionality, and can be tailored to your needs is great! But two things make the Insignia Infocast disappointing. The first is that you can't help but compare it to a smartphone or, if you're going up-market, the iPad.

Yes, I know that neither of those are a fair comparison because the iPad starts at five times the price and a smartphone at maybe double the price, but it's the slickness and sheer gloss of those devices that have defined, at least for me, how something that delivers information should behave and appear. The Infocast just looks clumsy in comparison.

The second thing is that the Infocast's engineering is disappointing. Starting the Infocast takes a surprisingly long time while the touch screen requires way too much pressure to sense your finger and the responsiveness of the graphical user interface (GUI) feels sluggish. Oh, and the Infocast has locked up on several occasions: It just froze for no apparent reason on a moon phase display widget and had to be powered off to restart.