Creative Zen X-Fi

The Creative Zen X-Fi is Creative’s latest addition to its MP3 Player family. The new Zen X-Fi is believed to be the replacement to the Creative Zen PMP. It is almost similar to the Zen with respect to the dimensions, weight etc and sports a much more stylish design. It is available in capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB. It competes directly with Apple’s iPod Nano and offers much more in terms of features. We review the Zen X-Fi and check whether it makes the cut.

Creative Zen X-Fi Specs

• Capacity: 16GB / 32GB
• Dimensions: 83mm x 55mm x 12.8mm
• Weight: 68.75gm
• Display: 2.5″ 16.7 M colors TFT LCD, 320 x 240 pixels
• Battery Life: 36 hrs Audio playback, 5 hrs Video playback
• Video Formats: MJPEG, WMV9, MPED4-SP, DivX 4/5 and XviD
• Audio Formats: MP3, WMA, AAC4 (.m4a), WAV (ADPCM), Audible 4
• Image Formats: JPEG / BMP/ GIF / PNG / TIFF
• Battery: Built-in Li-ion battery
• FM Radio: 32 preset stations
• EQ Settings: 8 presets and 5 band custom EQ
• Organizer: Calendar, Contact, Task List
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with WEP, WPA, WPA2
• Connectivity: USB 2.0, SD connection

Other features: Power Charging, Album Art, Voice Recording

Price: 16 GB - $199, 32 GB - $279.

Design and Interface:

The Creative Zen X-Fi is a very sleek and stylish DAP with dimensions of just 83mm x 55mm x 12.8mm and weighs in at just around 70 gms. This makes it very portable and easy to carry. It has superb build quality and feels sturdy and tough. It is fully built of plastic but has a metallic look and feel about it. The black version looks fully metallic and is good to handle. The 2.5″ 16 M color screen is slightly better than that of the Creative Zen and supports resolutions of 320 x 240 px. It is bright and vibrant with great viewing angles.

The user interface is the same old Zen’s with some new features integrated into it. It is one of the most intuitive and easy to use interfaces you will come across. You can also configure the menus to your liking and edit Menu items. The controls are very good, but there are too many buttons. It feels a bit cramped and it would have been better had Creative included a 5 way DPad as in the Zen. But its still very much usable and you can get used to it easily.

It supports Windows XP and Vista out of the box but doesn’t support Linux or Mac unless you install some hacks. You can simply drag and drop your music and video files into your Creative Zen or use any Media Player like Windows Media player or Winamp. It also comes with the new “Creative Centrale” software to manage your multimedia collection and sync data and update the firmware. It also includes a video converter for the Zen X-Fi.

The Creative Zen X-Fi supports expandable memory by way of SD card support but the memory card integration is not at all good. You can just access the files in the SD card but without any of the gallery or extra features just like in the Zen. The internal memory and external memory are clearly separated with the files in internal memory getting all the good treatment and features while the files in the external memory get neglected.

Audio and Video playback:

The Creative Zen X-Fi has superb sound quality and lives up to its family name. It is one of the best DAPs in the market when it comes to sound quality and can easily satisfy the hungry ears of most audiophiles. It does lag behind the Cowon’s but easily trumps out all of the iPods. What adds to the music playback is the inclusion of the Creative EP 830 earphones which are better than most other bundled earphones out there.

It also includes X-Fi which is Creative’s proprietary sound enhancing technology that improves the overall sound quality to a great extent by reshaping waveforms from lossless music. It comes with two settings - Crystallize and Expand. The music does sound a bit artificial and synthetic but X-Fi is a great feature, no doubt. The Creative Zen X-Fi also comes with a built in speaker which has a good volume and sound quality with nearly zero distortion.

The Video experience on the Zen X-Fi is very similar to Zen. It offers smooth video playback with no lag. It supports almost the same video codecs and formats as the old Zen - MJPEG, WMV9, MPED4-SP, DivX 4/5 and XviD. All other formats must be transcoded to the following formats at the 320 x 240 px resolution. The best tool for the conversion would be Creative Centrale. The 2.5″ 16 M color screen has good brightness and contrast levels, wider viewing angles.

Other Features:

The Creative Zen X-Fi also has Wi-Fi support and can connect to other wireless networks easily. You can share media content with other computers over the Wi-Fi network. Creative has also included a Chat feature in the Zen X-Fi usoing which you can chat with your friends over the Creative Chat network. It doesn’t include support for multitasking which means that you can’t do anything else while you are online. The Zen X-Fi also has very rudimentary texting support with no predictive text feature. It also includes no support for the major chat protocols like Yahoo, Gtalk, MSN etc which makes the Chat feature pretty unusable at this time.

The Creative Zen also includes other features like FM Radio, Voice recording, Photo Viewer and Organiser. Most of them are almost the same as the old Zen’s. The FM radio has decent reception and has the auto scan feature to automatically scan and store radio stations. You can view JPEG images in various modes like lists, thumbnails etc in the inbuilt Photo Viewer. You can also create slideshows with your images. The Voice recording feature can record audio and save recorded files as low bitrate WAV files. It also has shortcuts to start recording fast. The Organiser includes Contacts, calendar and to-do lists all of which can be synced with Creative Centrale.

The battery life of the Creative Zen X-Fi is officially rated at 35 hrs for audio and 5 hrs for video. It lasts about 2 days with medium usage with about 12 to 14 hrs of music and about 2.5 hrs of video. The battery drains off much quickly when Wi-Fi is in use.

Pros

• Nice bundled headphones
• Great build quality
• Superb sound quality with X-Fi
• Wi-Fi, FM radio, Organizer

Cons

• No Linux, Mac support
• Poor SD implementation
• Poor Chat software
• Primitive Text input

Conclusion:

The Creative Zen X-Fi is a great buy at just $199 for the 16 GB version and $279 for the 32 GB version. It includes a whole new array of features, some of which may be poorly implemented but are great to have, nevertheless. Most of them can be improved easily by a firmware update. It is a great replacement to the Zen with some glitches.

Rating: 3.75 / 5

Cowon A3

Portable music players with huge storage space are always on one’s hit list. But finding the right one has never been an easy task as the market has seen a big revolution and iPod Touch. It has now set new benchmarks for future generation PMPs through it excellent interface and by integrating various other features although it still needs improvement on the sound quality. Cowon players are though known for their sound quality and Cowon A3 is no exception.

Cowon A3 specifications :

• Dimensions : 5.2″ x 0.9″ x 3.1″
• Display : 4″ TFT screen
• Hard Disk capacity : 60GB
• PDF Viewer, Text Viewer
• Image formats supported : BMP,GIF,PNG,RAW,JPEG,TIFF
• Audio formats supported : AAC,MP3,WAV,WMA,FLAC etc.
• Video formats supported : AVI,VOB,MPEG,XviD,DivX etc.
• Rechargeable Lithium battery
• Approx. Price : $360

The Cowon A3 is the successor of Cowon A2 which had gained a lot of reputation for itself. The Cowon A3 comes in two hard disk capacities, a 30GB model and a 60GB one. The Cowon A3 scores high due to its big screen but loses out on its thickness which stands at 0.9″ which is not slim by any means.

The design of the Cowon A3 is pretty simple and it is a rectangle with screen occupying most of the space and the buttons occupying the rest of it on the right side of it. There isn’t any fancy or eye-catching about it and also the screen is not touchscreen which is a bit of disappointment.

The display is a big 4″ display which evens beats the iPod Touch screen size. The display is clarity is amazing and it is a pleasure to watch videos on it. But on the downside the screen is very prone to fingerprints and scratches.The buttons on the right side of the screen are mainly for navigation and controlling various media player controls. The joystick isn’t very friendly to use though.

The player supports a huge range of formats which is really good. Having wide range of format support is never bad but you should stick to a couple of them which offer you better battery backup and offer good quality without taking up too much space. The audio file sorting mechanism in Cowon A3 is certainly not quite what we see in today’s latest generation devices as it has limited sorting options.

The performance is the forte of the player. It offers exceptionally good video playback and equally good audio sound quality through in the earphones. The external stereo speakers ain’t bad either and do the job quite well.

Some of the drawbacks of the player include no WiFi support, no touchscreen and the display is highly reflective. Also the player looses out on looks. But apart from that the player simply rocks!

Pros :

• Excellent video playback
• Amazing audio sound quality
• Big and great display clarity
• Wide range of formats supported

Cons :

• Screen prone to fingerprints and scratches
• No WiFi support
• Joystick is not friendly
• No touchscreen

Final Thoughts

The Cowon A3 has superb audio and video quality that will leave you spellbound. It manages to get almost everything right except for a few features which off-late have made their entry to PMPs like WiFi. If you do not care about the cool interface of iPhone or don’t need anything more than a great PMP then go ahead with Cowon A3!

My Rating : 4/5

i pod Classic

In 2001 the audio world was rocked with the news of the first iPod. It could hold 1000 songs and used a hard drive to store the songs. Since then a number of iPod’s have been released in varying capacities but none have come close to the latest version.

The iPod Classic can hold an astonishing 40,000 songs or 200 hours of video and its all at a touch of your finger. The iPod Classic comes in two different capacities: 80GB and 160GB. While not cheap the Classic an hold your entire library of songs, pictures and movies all on a portable device.

The Classic also has the updated user interface and I must say that it’s an improvement over the last design that was on the old iPods.

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the iPod Classic:

• Street Price: $389.99 (160GB)
• 5.7 oz
• 160GB hard drive
• 2.5-inch with 320 x 240 resolution
• 40,000 songs or 200 hours of video

Things I like
The thing I like most about the Classic is its enormous hard drive. 160GB is more than some desktop computers have so you don’t need to worry about fitting all of your songs and movies onto it. While the 2.5inch screen isn’t ideal for watching videos it does produce a very nice picture and having all of your videos in your pocket is rather handy. I also like the new user interface. Apple has really been showing off their graphical power as of late and the ability to view album covers is a nice touch.

The final thing I like about the Classic is its battery life and charge time. The Classic’s battery will last 40 hours if you’re only playing music or 7 hours if you’re playing videos. This is really amazing considering that you have a working hard drive in there. Charging is really quick as well. To get an 80% charge you just have to plug it in for 2 hours. To get a full charge you’ll need to wait 4 hours but this isn’t bad considering you’ll have 40 hours of listening to your music.

Things I don’t like
There really isn’t much that I don’t like about the classic. I personally think Apple should have mixed the iPod Touch and the Classic together to make a Super iPod. But you can’t really fault the Classic for that so there isn’t anything I don’t like about it.

Pros:

• Large hard drive
• Nice Screen
• Amazing battery life and charging

Cons:

• none

Final Thoughts
If you need a new iPod I totally suggest buying the iPod Classic. In my opinion it’s the best iPod out there hands down because of it’s large capacity. While it is a little larger than the nano it can hold 20x more songs. I fully recommend buying the iPod Classic.

Apple iPod Shuffle 1GB

iPod Shuffle received a price cut which took the base price of the 1GB version of the player to 49$ from 79$.Apple also announced the 2GB version to the player to be sold for 69$.Apple iPod shuffle is the cheapest MP3 player from Apple and has been doing quite well for itself.We will look at its various aspects and features that makes it a good buy.

iPod Shuffle 1GB specifications:

• Dimensions : 25 x 85 x 9.7 mm
• Body: Anodized aluminum
• Formats supported : AAC,MP3,WAV,TIFF,Audible
• Li-ion battery
• USB 2.0 compatible

The most striking thing about this player is that the player is screenless.Although its subjective whether that is a good thing or not, in my opinion it is well and good for the price tag and also the fact that the product is a part of Apple family.The player is suited for people who are not concerned about choosing tracks or watching song information as it plays.The device is sleek and small making it very handy to carry around.

The player also has a belt-clip which keeps the player always within your reach.The player feature a 5-key navigation system.The play-pause button is the center most button.The volume buttons and track shuttle keys make up the other 4 buttons.There are additional two buttons at the bottom of player for turning the player on/off and a toggle button to shift between shuffle and repeat modes.

The charging and syncing is done through the cradle that comes bundled with the player.iTunes is the standard way of adding tracks to the music player.A new pair of earbuds make their way which are better than the ones which were provided earlier with the player.The Shuffle supports playlists which is very helpful for a screenless player.

The sound quality of the player considering its price range is good but it is nowhere compared to say iPod Touch or Creative Zen.The bundled earphones lack bass but overall is a decent performer.The battery life was found to be around 15 hours which is excellent.

Pros:

• Small and sleek
• Simple navigation
• Inexpensive
• Five available colors

Cons:

• No screen
• USB cradle needed for charging+syncing
• Just above average sound quality

Final Thoughts

The Apple iPod shuffle 1GB is absolutely worth the price after the price reduction and is a no nonsense player. If you like to flip through tracks and love to see song information then this player is not for you.Just above average sound is good enough for non-audiophiles.Hence buy this player if you are looking for cheap but good music player.

Rating: 4/5

Sony NWZ-A818

Some of the popular MP3 players like iPod Touch,Creative Zen Vision,Zune have already been reviewed here but one brand that also makes good players has not been reviewed here is Sony.Sony MP3 players are not as popular as some of the ones mentioned above but that might change if Sony manages to match them.The Sony NWZ-A818 is a very slick player that gives stiff competition to other MP3 players.

Sony NWZ-A818 specifications:

• Weight: 530 gms
• Display: 240 x 320 2″ TFT screen
• Flash memory: 8 GB
• Audio formats supported: MP3,AAC,WMA,PCM
• Video formats supported : MPEG4,M4V
• Image formats supported: JPEG
• 33 hours playback time on Li-ion battery

The Sony NWZ-A818 is a encased in a metallic body which is of high quality and you get to choose between 4 colors of your choice viz. black,white,silver or pink.The chrome finishing gives it a royal look.The display is an eye-catcher and its clarity will leave you craving for more.The 2″ inch screen has a resolution of 240 x 320 which displays excellent well lit photos having apt saturation level. The navigation on the player is controlled by a set of three buttons provided below the display.The four way-circular key , power/options button and the back/home provide you with all the navigations tools that you need with the player.You can control the volume through a dedicated button provided on the right panel.You will though find it difficult to access the hold button which has been placed at the back by Sony which is rather odd. The menu system has been well designed with many options provided on the main screen itself.You can also view the screen in landscape mode for viewing photos.The playback screen displays album art and other details related to the song.You can also set screen saver on it. Coming to the features aspect , the player is capable to playing the major formats like AAC,MP3 and WMV which are enough for most of the users.Support for MPEG4 movies and JPEG movies is good but Sony could have included a couple more here to make it more compatible.Also the player does not have a FM tuner which might not go down well with some users.Including it would have given Sony an upper hand over iPod in this department.The bundling of MDR-EX082 earphones with this player is one of the best reasons of buy this player apart from its performance which we will see next.So you won’t need to buy a set of good earphones as they are great even for audiophiles hence saving some cool bucks in the process. The performance is the forte of the player.The amazing sound quality will set your pulse racing leaving you asking for more.The bass is exceptional and the volume is not a concern at all for those who like to crank up it up to the highest.The bundled earphones double the joy of listening.The battery life at 33 hours for audio and 8 hours for video is great making sure you don’t need to find that socket every now and then.The video quality is butter smooth and images as said earlier appear good. Pros:

• Excellent sound quality
• Great display
• Fast processor
• Great bundled earphones
• Amazing battery life

Cons:

• No FM tuner
• Limited video/image formats supported
• Hold key inconvenient
• No expandable memory

Final Thoughts The performance is exceptional on this player which is at par or better than its iPod counterparts.The bundling of great earphones adds to the yum.You will hardly find such huge battery life on other MP3 players.No FM tuner or inexpandable memory are minor negatives of this player which get buried by its positives.The player costs less than 200$ which makes it excellent buy at this price.The Sony NWZ-A818 receives a big thumbs up from me!

Creative Zen Vision:M

Creative Zen players have always giving a strong competition to the iPod family. Creative Zen Vision:M promises to do the same and more. The Creative Zen Vision series is aimed at users who want to carry their entire music collection with them. They combine style and performance to fulfill every need of a music listener.

Here are its specs:

• Dimensions: 2.4 x 0.7 x4.1 ” (W x D x H)
• Weight : 5.7 oz
• Storage : 30 GB
• Voice Recording, Radio
• Audio formats supported : MP3, WAV, WMA, ADPCM, Protected WMA (DRM)
• Video formats supported : DivX 4, DivX 5, XviD5, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, MPEG
• Image formats supported : JPEG,BMP,GIF,TIFF
• 2.5″ Display with 320 x 240 resolution

These are some of the major specifications of the Creative Zen Vision:M but there are a lot of other features. Coming to the most impressive part of the player is it screen. The 2.5″ screen is just amazing and displays colors vividly and excellent contrast and brightness. The brightness can also be changed manually but the viewing angle is not good.

Navigation buttons provided below the screen are not as good as the iPod.The 4 buttons and the touchpad provide you with the navigations features that you require to move through its menus or while browsing songs.Creative needs to do more work on them in its future versions.

The player plays almost all the popular audio/video formats and hence you will have to waste less or virtually no time in converting your audio/music collection.The player starts up quickly and so is it performance.It manages to play files quickly without making you to wait too much. Video playback is smooth but you do find few dropped frames now and then. The audio is great with bass,treble and vocals all sounding good even with the bundled earphones but you won’t regret spending on a better pair of earphones.

The radio is clear and loud with reception quality being good and it can store upto 32 channels.The pictures are scaled to its native QVGA resolution to fit its screen but can be zoomed to display them in full glory.The battery life is about 4 hours for video and 12 hours for music playback under optimal settings.Syncing options though are available for Windows XP only.

Pros:

• Brilliant Display
• FM tuner,voice recorder
• Good battery life
• Vast range of audio/video codecs supported

Cons:

• Average navigation buttons
• No OS X support
• Bad viewing angle

Final Thoughts

Creative Zen Vision:M manages to keep most of the promises that it makes but does leave room for improvements which can hamper its sales against the iPod.But lets not take the credit away from it.It has an excellent display which will make movie watching a pleasure and so is it audio quality.Hence it is a strong competitor against the iPod Video but might lose against the iPod Touch in my opinion.

Zune 30 GB

Zune is a digital media player manufactured by Microsoft which allows you to play your digital content on the go. The first impression you get when looking at the Zune is that it is too bulky as compared to the iPod but mind you this monster packs in 30GB of storage space. That is more than 15 times your regular iPod Nano at 3-4 times the size.

You can store up to 7500 mp3 files or 25000 photos or if you are video buff you can store up to 100 hours of video files on the Zune. Zune comes with a 3″ screen which makes the video experience much better.

You can also view the videos in either landscape or portrait mode. The best part is that you do not have to change any settings just turn the player around and it will automatically change to landscape or portrait mode depending on which way you turned it around.

If you are looking to catch the radio waves worry not the Zune comes built in with a FM Tuner, so you will not miss your favorite radio shows even when you are traveling around.

The sound and video quality is really good and you will definitely enjoy listening to songs and viewing videos on it. The wide screen eventually gives you a better view than other digital media players.

Zune Features

• 30GB capacity - Keep 7,500 songs (MP3 format) or 25,000 photos at your fingertips, or even 100 hours of video.
• Photo and video compatible - Sometimes you want more than music to entertain you; the Zune delivers both photo and video options.
• Hard drive storage format - Integrated hard drive provides massive amounts of memory for the least amount of money.
• 3″ portrait or landscape video screen - Unusual 3″ video screen goes from portrait to landscape mode as you turn your Zune; you always see the best picture possible.
• Extensive file format compatibility - Advanced software lets you import most music, photos and videos with ease.
• FM tuner - Catch the Top 40, stay up to date with your favorite sports teams, and make sure the weather doesn’t take you by surprise.
• Online music store - Browse the huge selection of music in the Zune Marketplace designed to work flawlessly with your Zune.

If you thought that the cost would be at least 10 times more than more than the iPod you are in for a surprise. You can get the Zune 30GB Brown Edition for around 160$. There are regular deals offered by most of the online shopping sites where the price can go as low as $99. This could work out to only 3$ per GB of digital media space.

Pros

Large Storage Space

Zune definitely has a edge over iPod in this area. With 30 gigabytes of space at the same price for a 4GB iPod I would happily prefer a Zune over an iPod. The pushing factor is that I can store almost 7 times more data at the same cost.

Bigger Screen

Zune has a bigger screen which means that you can view movies and images better than the usual displays iPod provides you with. I definitely am not a fan of viewing videos on a mp3 player but the larger screen area caught my attention while viewing images.

Cons

Too Bulky To Carry

Microsoft Zune with regards to flexibility. It is really hard to fit in a 30 gig Zune into your jeans pocket whereas an iPod would seamlessly go through. They did a gross job while competing with the amount of space a portable mp3 player gave you as what is the point when it is not easily portable.

I definitely do not see much of the female folks opting for the Zune due to the sheer size of the player.

Not A Pioneer

Zune is following in the steps of iPod and the popularity is yet to catch up with people. There are numerous amounts of softwares to add more functionality to your iPod but not that many for the Zune. Once there is a better developer network for Zune it would definitely rock.

Final Thoughts

If you want a monster of a digital player which can store lots of media files then the Zune is the best thing that could happen to you. Zune provides the a pretty good quality while listening to songs or viewing videos.

The only thing that goes against is the size and weight but with the amount of storage packed in it is bound to be a bit heavy. I definitely see a bright future for Zune and foresee a smaller version coming up in the future with additional storage space.

iPod Nano

Back when MP3 players were first released the best you could get was a 512MB player and it was approximately the size of a small brick. Apple changed the MP3 world when it released the first iPod. Recently however Apple has updated their smallest iPod (with a screen) and the changes are fairly amazing.

Now in its third generation, Apple’s iPod Nano gets a substantial redesign to accommodate games and video playback. Despite its changes the iPod Nano is still one of the smallest and thinnest MP3 players on the market. It’s also one of the most affordable, with a 4GB (silver) model offered for $149, and an 8GB (silver, black, red, green, or blue) model for $199. While the iPod Classic and the new iPod Touch are equally exciting, the new Nano delivers the biggest bang for your buck.

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the iPod Nano:

• Street price: $149 - $199
• 2-inch liquid crystal display
• Holds up to 1,000 (4GB) or 2,000 songs (8GB)
• Music, Pictures and videos
• Cover flow, podcasts, and games

Things I like
The iPod nano is a really cool product, it’s so tiny and can how a large number of songs. The thing I like the most about the Nano is it’s small size. You can easily fit this into your shirt pocket and forget that it’s there. The Nano has all of the regular features that the other iPods have so you’re not losing anything by going with the small size. The other thing that I’m glad wasn’t over looked with its small size is the battery life. The Nano’s battery life is still really good. You can listen to all of your songs without worrying about running out of battery life half way through. The final thing I like about the Nano is it’s small price tag. Coming in at only $150 it’s a little more expensive than the iPod shuffle but a lot less expensive than the iPod classic.

Things I don’t like
The main thing that I don’t like about the Nano is the fact that you can only get the different colors on the 8GB model. For some reason Apple decided to only provide the 4GB with the grey color and I have no idea why they would do this. While it’s only $50 more to get the larger model (and the colors), it just seems a little weird to me. Other than this however, I really can’t find anything wrong with the iPod Nano. It is a great device that is a lot of fun to listen to, watch and play.

Pros:

• Small size
• Very cheap compared to over iPods
• Excellent features

Cons:

• Colors only available for the 8GB model
• Can only hold 2000 songs (at the most)

Final Thoughts
I think the Nano is a great MP3 player. I personally would get a larger iPod since I have a lot of music but it really is a great little thing. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on an MP3 player this is for you. It has a nice little screen, all of the features of the larger iPods and is a lot cheaper. I’m recommending this product for anyone that needs a new MP3 player.

T.Sonic 840

Mp3 players come in many different shapes and sizes. They range from small, light weight devices that can’t hold many songs at all to large clunkers that can hold all of our songs and then some.

Transcend is one of the premiere Mp3 makers in the world. They make excellent devices and the T.Sonic 840 is no exception. The 840 is a small, compact device that comes in both 2GB and 4GB models. It features a 1.8″ color screen and a 3-phase wheel which is easy to use. The 840 also has many different features that make this much more than your normal Mp3 player

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the T.Sonic 840:

• Street price: $99
• 2GB and 4GB models
• 1.8″ color screen
• Digital voice recorder
• FM radio, FM recorder
• 3-phase wheel

Things I like
The T.Sonic 840 is a really cool device. Despite it’s small size, the 840 packs a large punch. It has a 1.8″ color screen, a number of different audio features and a 3-phase wheel (like the iPod). I think the thing I like the most about the 840 is the fact that it includes a FM radio and recorder as well as a digital voice recorder. While most people wouldn’t be that impressed with these three things I am. Most other Mp3 players don’t include them and the fact that Transcend does means that they pay attention to even the smallest of details.

The other thing I like about the 840 is it’s small size. Coming in at just under $100 it won’t dent your pockets like some of the other devices. $100 means that even if you’re on a tight budget or no budget at all you should be able to afford it and then use the money you would have saved to buy your songs legally

Things I don’t like
My main issue with the T.Sonic 840 is its small capacity. 4GB is barely enough to hold even an assortment of your music. My music library is already over 20GB and growing rapidly. It’s annoying only being able to keep a small portion of your library on the device at any one time. Other than this I really like this device.

Pros:

• Small size
• Very cheap
• 1.8″ color screen

Cons:

• Can’t hold a lot of songs

Final Thoughts
The Transcend T.Sonic 840 is a great device if you’re wanting to get into the Mp3 market. It features a number of cool things and is small in size and price. If you have a large music collection this definitely isn’t for you. I would definitely recommend this device, it is a really good find.

Belkin TuneFM VS4121

When it comes to iPod accessories Belkin is king. They’ve produced everything from cases to speakers to adapters and everything in between . Belkin is also known for their high quality standards, if it has their name on it than it must be good.

The Belkin TuneFM is a car adapter for your iPod 5G. You plug the wireless transmitter into the bottom of your iPod and then you plug the charger into your cars cigarette lighter, or a 12V charger if your car doesn’t have a cigarette lighter. The charger is optional because the wireless will work fine off your iPods battery but its always nice to know that you can recharge it if needed.

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the VS4121:

• Street Price: $49.99
• Uses the iPod display for quick and easy FM tuning
• Delivers best-in-class audio performance
• Features 4 single-touch, programmable preset buttons
• Includes auto power cord to power and charge your iPod in the car

Things I like
I am very torn on this product. There are many things that I like about the TuneFM but there are many things I don’t. One thing that I like is the optional charger. Sometimes you want to have your iPod free and Belkin allows you to do this. Some similar products force you to charge your unit constantly and this can be very frustrating. I also like that it comes in black because I have a black iPod. This makes it look very clean and professional. They don’t make it in white so if you have a white iPod your out of luck

Things I don’t like
I really don’t like the wireless transmitter, it just isn’t strong enough for city driving. If there’s even the faintest of radio signals on the channel that you’re trying to listen to you car will pick it up over the TuneFM’s signal. This tends to be very frustrating since it leads to you having to change the channels often. I don’t like the fact that it only comes in black. If you have a white iPod you’re basically stuck with a black transmitter which just doesn’t look good. The final thing I don’t like is that the chargers USB connection isn’t very strong with the transmitter. I’ve gone over speed bumps and the charger connection has fallen out of the transmitter. Belkin should have made this a stronger connection so it didn’t fall out at every bump.

Pros:

• Option to charge or have it run off the iPods battery
• Black looks good on black iPods

Cons:

• Poor wireless quality
• Black doesn’t look good on white iPods
• Charging cable falls out very easy

Final Thoughts
The Belkin TuneFM is a decent product if you want to listen to your iPod in your car. It gives you the choice if you want to charge your iPod to plug it into the cigarette lighter or leave it out and it looks really good against a black iPod. If it wasn’t for the fact that the actual wireless transmitter was very weak this would be an excelled product. Unfortunately the transmitter is so bad that you constantly have to try to find new stations to play your music on and this is very frustrating. I wouldn’t advise buying this, there are many other devices out there that are better than the Belkin TuneFM.

iPod Touch

On October 23, 2001 the mp3 changed forever. Apple introduced the first iPod and it literally changed the way people saw the mp3 player. It made large capacity players a reality and also set the price of mp3 players for the future.

In September of 2007 after the success of the iPhone, Apple introduced their newest media player, the iPod Touch . This device features one of the best user interfaces ever created. You can use your fingers to navigate its menus via the large 3.5″ touch screen.

The iPod Touch is much more than a mere music player. It can play videos, surf the web (via WiFi) and save your pictures. The iPod Touch is essentially the iPhone without the actual phone.

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the iPod Touch:

• Revolutionary multi-touch interface
• 3.5-inch widescreen color display
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
• Safari, YouTube, iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
• 8mm thin

Things I like
The iPod Touch is a truly amazing device. The user interface allows you to effortlessly surf the web, listen to your music, browse your pictures and watch your videos with the touch of your fingers. While touch screens have been done before, Apple has revolutionalized the way its done with multi-touch capabilities. You can now touch with more than one finger and it makes typing and scrolling much easier.

The other thing I really like about the iPod Touch is that Apple included WiFi capabilities. This means that if you’re near a WiFi hotspot you can connect and surf over to YouTube to watch videos. It’s small things like this that really impress me. The final thing that I like is the fact that the iPod Touch notices when you switch the device on its side. If you’re watching a video you can turn the iPod Touch on its side and it will automatically switch to wide-screen mode.

Things I don’t like
The iPod Touch is meant to be a MEDIA DEVICE. This means it’s supposed to store more than just music. It’s supposed to be able to store pictures, videos and music but Apple only gave it 16GB worth of space. I realize that these are flash drives and are more expensive than normal hard drives but 16GB is just not enough to store all of your pictures and videos. For an example, I have 12GB worth of music, 16GB of pictures and over 200GB of movies. I realize that all of this couldn’t fit on a player but you should be able to fit at least some of it.

Other than the fact that the iPod Touch doesn’t have enough space to store all of your music and videos I can’t seem to find anything else wrong with it. I’ve been using it for a while now and I’ve found no glitches in the software and no areas where I would improve it.

Pros:

• Very nice design
• Multi-touch capabilities are awesome
• WiFi

Cons:

• Not enough space
• A little expensive

Final Thoughts
The iPod Touch is a very nice device. The multi-touch capabilities are a very cool and make browsing your music and video files a lot easier than the old way of doing things. I think that the device is a little expensive and there should be more storage included but over all it is definitely a solid media player. If you don’t have an iPod Touch I would totally advise getting it.