October 14, 2008, 8:59 PM — They're small, they're shiny and they're wired for sound. The market is choc-a-bloc with these gadgets that divvy up as photo-albums, radios, and mini-movie and music players. With so many choices, one is bound to strike the right chord with you. We compare 12 of the latest to help you decide.
iPod Nano
The new generation of the revolutionary iPod Nano was a late entrant in our comparison, but steamrolled its way to the top. Not only does it pack in all the features that made the older Nano such a great player, but it also boasts completely new ones such as an Accelerometer, and the Genius service, which creates playlists based on the type of music and spoken menus. The Nano uses the new iTunes 8 soft ware for music management and enabling the newer features.
The Nano was the sleekest looking player in our comparison and the brushed silver exterior looks and feels great. It weighs less than 40 grams and is a quarter of an inch thick, making it the slimmest iPod yet. The click wheel makes its appearance again but the player reverts back to its second generation design. Navigating the newly-designed interface was smooth even when browsing through long lists of songs. Its accelerometer let us play around with its three pre-installed games flawlessly.
The 2-inch screen is sharp and was the best in the comparison. It did more justice to short video clips and album art than any other portable audio player in our comparison. You would not be surprised if we say it's better to ditch the bundled headphones and get your own pair. Such a great sounding player does not deserve such a cheap sounding earphone. We plugged in our reference AKG pair and found out that it carries over the same well-balanced clean sound which is suited for listening to all genres of music. And it also has enough power to drive most full size headphones. The iPod Nano 4G will be sold at around Rs.9,700 (US$197) for a minimum of 8 GB. Apple once again proves that aesthetics, ergonomics and astounding performance can go hand in hand.
Sony NWZ E435F
The Walkman in the 1990s was synonymous with portable music players. So it is only fitting that Sony's NWZ E435F, despite the overly complicated name, emerged as an excellent player. It delivered the basics and then some in a simple and highly effective manner. The Sony sports a clean and well-organized main menu which puts all of the player's functions within immediate reach. Although, the round central button might deceptively resemble a click-wheel, it is actually comprised of four tactile navigation buttons and a central Enter/Play/Pause button.
All buttons are well-placed and blind navigation is a cinch. We thoroughly enjoyed the Sony's sound output on our test Sennheiser CX300 earphones and AKG k141 Studio headphones. The bass-lines were heralded in with resounding thumps without compromising on the highs. This meant an overall rich sound quality that was tight in all the right areas. The earphones bundled with the player also gave decent output although it was nothing to write home about. Although the bundled CD has Windows Media Player 11 and Sony's Media Manager, the player also supports drag-and-drop for files. The FM Radio is also an adequate addition.
Despite the 2-inch screen, the screen quality could have been better. As a result, watching videos on the player left us dissatisfied. At the end of the day, the Sony is reasonably priced at Rs. 6,490, gives 4 GB of storage space and a totally memorable music experience.
Sansa Fuze
The SanDisk Sansa Fuze 4GB is another compact portable audio player offering great value for money in terms of features and performance. Available in black and silver color, the glossy front sports a mechanical wheel for a smooth navigational experience and a 1.9-inch screen. But its glossy finish attracts finger prints and is prone to scratches. And the screen at 224 x 176-pixel resolution is not really a good video player. The player supports microSD card, and also has voice and FM recording ability.
The Sansa Fuze has a proprietary port instead of a mini USB. With drag and drop support, 1GB of media files took around 5 minutes to transfer which is fast compared to other players in our test. The player interface is simple and easy to use. It plays WMA, MP3, and WAV but no AAC format. It also plays MPEG-4 videos. Creating playlists and deleting songs is also possible. And it has one customizable Equalizer with 10 presets. We replaced the bundled headphones with our Sennheiser right away. It sounded well-balanced across all frequency ranges. With a little tweak on EQ, achieving a richer and deeper sound was easy.
The only thing it lacked is the depth and the warmth of the Sony Walkman and it is not loud enough to drive full-size headphones. The battery lasted for over 16 hours against the rated 24 hours, but that is still decent. For Rs.6,890, it is one of the best portable audio players to keep you company on a short trip or while working out at the gym.
Cowon iAudio 7
With the same old features but better pricing, the Cowon iAudio 7 found its way to our testing block again. The tiny 1.3-inch screen and the hyper touch sensitive buttons, did not impress us. The player plays more formats than any other player from lossless codecs like FLAC and WAV to other popular formats. It also has an array of audio enhancement features, but its interface could have been more polished considering it's a power-packed audio player. Using the player is frustrating, owing to the extra sensitive touch-based buttons.
Even the slightest touch is frustrating as you end up skipping your favorite tracks instead of queuing them. First, we turned off all the audio enhancements and plugged in our Sennheiser in-earplug that resulted in tight bass and sharp highs. The only thing we found it lacking is the smooth bass and rich sound that the Sony NWZ E435 offers.But when we tweaked around its rich audio enhancements, things got really better.Features like line-in recording, voice recording with different settings for microphone sensitivity are what set the iAudio 7 apart from the rest. On top of that, the battery life is outstanding. It lasted us more than 36 hours which is the longest we achieved in our test. Our only complaint is the unpolished interface and extra-sensitive controls. But with the price dropped to Rs. 6,250 and outstanding audio performance, it's a mean audio player.
Samsung YP-S3
If it was only down to looks, the Samsung YP-S3 would win this comparison hands down. The YP-S3 is a stunner, both sleek and cool looking but not over the top. The Samsung is completely black and sports a 1.8-inch screen on a completely smooth front This is because the S3 is controlled through touch-sensitive buttons. Now if this was well done, this would be a very cool feature and for the first few minutes, that did impress us. But the interface is also too sensitive which means that a slight touch can skip songs, change the volume and play havoc with your music experience.
The Samsung's audio performance was satisfactory except for the fact that the highs were terribly high. This meant that listening to a treble-friendly song at loud volume became a painful auditory experience. However, aft er keeping the volume control in check, the player's output was acceptable with bright highs and tight low-ends. Priced at Rs 6,400, the YP-S3 is a good buy and it also has Bluetooth support for stereo wireless but it has enough weaknesses to keep it in the lower half of our comparison table.
Transcend T.sonic 850
In our tests the refreshingly white Transcend surprised us with its performance. With a genuinely frugal price-tag and 4GB storage, the Transcend takes very few wrong steps. One of these is its interface, which although fast, does not match up to its competitors in terms of design and usability. The player does not allow you to browse music through Album, Artist or other common fields but restricts you to merely browsing through folders. On the audio playback front, the Transcend gave a competent performance. Although, the sound output lacked bass and was a bit too bright for our liking, there wasn't much else to complain about.
The bundled earphones didn't stand out but that was also true for the other players. The Transcend also has a built-in microphone for voice recording and a text reader both of which were pretty easy to use. However, we were disappointed by its FM Radio as it was unable to consistently acquire decent reception. Overall, the Transcend makes up for its shortcomings with a great price tag of Rs. 4,000.
Cowon iAudio D2
Cowon's legacy still held true when the D2 arrived in our labs for the third time. Rich in features and high on performance is the most apt description for the Cowon iAudio D2. Its 2.5-inch touchscreen interface is crisp and bright. The interface is also easy to use without a confusing menu. It also has a guitar strum-like stylus for navigation. The main reason it stood out was because of the outstanding performance it delivered and its array of useful features.
This included voice recording and FM radio, line-in recording, external memory card support and plenty of audio enhancements. For syncing and media conversion, it came with Jet- Shell and JetAudio application. Transferring media files did not take long -- around 6 minutes to transfer 1GB of files. And thanks to its wide audio format support, we were able to fetch those Lossless FLAC files and could bring out the true nature of the iAudio D2. While listening to Hip-Hop and Trance, we could hear the deep and solid bass with no compromise on the vocals and higher frequencies. Overall, the audio is top-notch.
However, the FM radio signal reception was not in the same league though our recordings were loud and clear. Video playback was satisfactory for a screen of this size. The battery life is impressive as at maximum volume playback lasted for more than 36 hours. At Rs 9,000, the iAudio D2 emerged our winner.
Creative Zen X-Fi
There's no two ways about it, the Creative Zen X-Fi is a very impressive portable media player that retails for s. 13,990.This player sports the same 2.5-inch screen as the Zen and the video playback and overall visual performance is noteworthy. The interface is navigated with the slightly confusing nine-button unmarked keypad and it took us some time to get used to it. However, after sometime, we could make our way through the various menus and submenus without much effort. At first, when we began testing our music files on the player, the sound appeared strangely fl at without any sonic variations.
Enabling the X-Fi Crystalizer made a very audible difference. The tones suddenly became warmer and the bass-lines and guitar plucking in Blues songs stood out distinctively. So do remember to turn it on if you are using this player. The bundled earphones are the Creative EP-830 in-ear plugs which give very decent output. This is a nice addition from Creative as most players come with very average earphones. The bonus feature of the X-Fi player is a built-in speaker with average sound but low volume. The Zen X-Fi has an built-in memory of 8GB and it also supports SD cards.
Creative Zen
The second Creative PMP in our comparison is the Creative Zen. The stand-out feature here is definitely its great looking screen. Its 2.5-inch TFT display which displays a resolution of 320 x 240, makes accessing the player a pleasure. As a result, video playback is well done with good color contrasts, less noise and no frame-rate stutter. The player is controlled through a set of tactile buttons set on the right side of its face. These buttons feel right and make navigating through the interface a painless affair.
The interface is intuitively designed and is easy to get used to. However, response is not instantaneous and there is about half a second's worth of delay in the navigation. This can be ignored safely though. Nothing much stood out when listening to music on the Zen. Listening to John Mayer's Gravity was a subdued experience and the otherwise exquisite guitar licks sounded muddled with the rest of the sound. Even bass-heavy songs did not come with the requisite "thump." The earphones packed along with the Zen are merely adequate and audiophiles would be well advised to pick up a good set of earphones.
The Zen comes with built-in 4 GB of storage space and you can also pop in an SD card into the player's slot, expandable up to 16 GB. You can use Creative Centrale, which comes with the player, or Windows Media Player (preferably 11) to sync up to the player. Alternatively, you can just drag and drop files. At Rs. 6,990, the Zen is a value for money product if you are not very particular about the sound performance.
Sony NWZ-A726
The Sony NWZ-A726 is part of the A-series from Sony Walkman that is well known for delivering outstanding sound with a simple interface. It did not really pack in many features, so for those looking for a do-it-all player, look elsewhere. We missed FM radio, voice recording and memory card expansion, and well, touchscreen. But its audio support includes Sony's own ATRAC apart from WMA, AAC and MP3. The body is slim and lightweight. Its flat navigation pad, the volume rocker, and the responsive menu interface make it a joy to use.
The 2.4-inch TFT screen is just good enough to view album art but not for video. As usual, there is the Sony proprietary port instead of the regular mini USB. Transferring 1GB of files took over 8 minutes which is a bit slower than most. The best thing about Sony is its impressive sound quality. And better still, it came with a high-quality in-ear monitor, the Sony MDR-EX series. Though it had ClearBass and a bunch of preset EQs, we felt it sounded best with all audio enhancements switched off . It delivered one of the best sounds in our comparison.
Listening to Kanye West's Everything I Am gave us the complete impact of its deep and smooth bass. A selection of jazz tracks revealed its detailed mids and sweet highs. Its battery lasted us for 26 hours. But the pricetag of Rs. 8,990 is a bit steep considering its minimal features, but if you crave superior sound, this is the one to own.
Philips GoGear SA5245BT
The Philips GoGear SA5245BT is a mid-range budget PMP with many useful attributes that many costlier brands missed on their players. The fingerprint- prone glossy black front has a 2.8-inch TFT screen of 320-by- 240 resolution and a fl at circular navigation pad that is easy to use. The build and design is quite user-friendly and this makes the GoGear score high on ergonomics. It's the only PMP in our comparison that has Bluetooth stereo streaming support. We found regular features like Voice and FM recording, support for MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG-4 and WMV video formats. It came with a media management soft ware that also multitasks as a media converter.
We faced a slight lagging issue while browsing the menu. Despite its comparatively bigger screen, images lack sharpness. Music playback on the bundled in-ear plugs sounded best when the Full Sound enhancement mode was switched on. But overall sound is too bright and muddled. The battery lasted 15 hours lwhich should suffice for most users. At Rs. 7,999, there are better choices out there.
Mitashi MWI-4GA
The only good thing about this player is its price-tag. Available for Rs. 5,490, it was the cheapest player in our comparison but keep in mind, you will get a performance that can be described as average at best. Although the front of the player sports a large 2.4-inch screen, the icons on display on the main screen are miniscule and navigation is hard with the awkwardly designed small control buttons set at the top. The player gives patchy video playback and the less we talk about the music playback the better.
The earphones that came with the player were absolutely awful and even our test Sennheiser couldn't do much to add to the playback. Whether it played Machinehead or Jack Johnson, it was just uniformly average. A slight saving grace is that the player does come with a miniSD slot and a bunch of other features like FM, voice recording and a text reader. But even all of this was not enough to save this player from coming in last.
