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Pros:
Large screen, ideal for surfing the Internet, good music quality and video playback, 60GB HDD is good value for the price.

Cons:
Fairly bulky, performance is not up to the mark.

Archos has its thing in the world of portable multimedia player for longer than most of the portable players out ther, but it has been doing fairly good when it comes to the game.

It is one of the larger portables, you could spend your money on, but it still feels smooth and slender in his hand. You Could take it everywhere you go, simply stowed in your pocket? But it might feel a bit bulky in the pocket.

However, if you are willing to take the extra bulk video, music and Internet surfing on the move, then the Archos 5 has much to offer. The 4.8inch screen, 800 x 480 LCD display is one of the largest MP4 players Archos has made, complete with touch screen control.

Clear interface, offers intuitive control.

The standard Archos comes with 60GB of memory, there are 120GB sold for £ 320 and 250GB sold for £ 360 models available, the Archos supports MPEG4, WMV, AVI and Flash movies plus the usual range of audio formats including AAC and Apple Lossless.

Sings on the Internet with Opera - You get a solid 12 hours of music and a somewhat disappointing four hours of video from the battery.

In contrast to previous Archos machines, this has included the Opera browser so you can browse content once you are on Wi-Fi.

The big screen comes in here, allowing for a larger keyboard than the iPod Touch, for fast, accurate navigation. If you want more functionality, there is a £ 80 for the inclusion of DVR and streaming to your TV, plus a £ 25 plug-in for HD compatibility.

Video performance is detailed and with good color, though not quite as sharp and stable as the iPod Touch.

Musically, it lacks a little touch of insight, although it is very balanced and natural sound.
The Archos 5 has a lot to offer in terms of performance, features and functions.

Pros:
Good-sized screen, excellent file compatibility, supports HD videos, SD card and FM tuner
Cons:

Low battery life, looks and feels cheap.

First impressions of this multimedia players is underwhelming. The Cowon A3 seems a bit outdated, lumpen figure, and it is also struggling to sell itself as a portable music player.

The interface is pretty stale, while the joystick control method is unpredictable and tricky. However, we could look past some of these weaknesses.

Working Features and Design:

There is a 4inch screen with 800 x 480 resolution. Cowon A3 can play a lot of format, in fact the A3 can play 1280 x 720 HD video content without the need for any form of file conversion, although of course the video is scaled down.

File compatibility is excellent, with support for AVI, WMV, ASF and MPEG4 video files, among other things, while the audio line-up is as exhaustive, support MP3, WMA, Ogg, FLAC, WAV. In a nutshell the Cowel A3 has better file compatibility than the ipod.

There is an FM radio and a built-in microphone for recording.

Decent performance, but not the best. Thus, the Cowon A3 has staged something of a recovery, but of course the design is of crucial importance. And video and sound is okay, but not quite reach the heights of the top dogs in this area like the Creative Zen.


Battery life is not great, either, only about nine hours of music, despite a healthy seven hours of video.

The Pros:The Sony X-Series Walkman is a solid device with a sleek, utilitarian design and a unique and compelling interface, it is compatible with Mac and Windows and supports podcasts from iTunes and videos from Amazon Unbox, offers a wealth of features including an on-board Slacker app, integrated YouTube support, Wi-Fi, an FM tuner and built-in noise reduction. The supplied earphones are more beautiful than the average, the sound quality is excellent, and the battery life is rated excellent.

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]]> aristo@88db.co.in (Admin) Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:44:52 GMT http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1845-sony-x-series-walkman-price-specification-review-design-features- http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1844-creative-zen-x-fi-music-player-features-specifications-price

The new Zen X-Fi is a refreshed version of  Zen, with add on features like X-Fi sound enhancement and wireless features.

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]]> aristo@88db.co.in (Admin) Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:43:07 GMT http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1844-creative-zen-x-fi-music-player-features-specifications-price http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1841-creative-zen-xfi2-music-player

The Zen X-Fi2 is Creative's bold answer to Apple's iPod touch. It features a large touchscreen display and has support for installing applications and games on the device. It also features a built-in loudspeaker, FM radio, voice recorder and has 8GB, 16GB and 32GB memory capacities, with the ability to further increase the memory with an external microSD card slot. It also features Creative X-Fi technology for audio enhancement and comes with high quality Creative EP-630 earphones in the bundle. So how does it compare to the reigning champion of the media player world, the iPod touch?

Bundle:
Creative Zen X-Fi2
Creative EP-630 earphones
Three size eartips (S, M, L)
USB cable
User Guide

Design & Construction:
The top edge has the power button, which also acts as the device lock key and there is a microSD card slot. On the right side is the 3.5mm headphone jack for connecting your headphones and below it is miniUSB port. On the bottom is the microphone pinhole. The backside has the same wavelike pattern that we saw on the older Creative Zen player.

The build quality and fit and finish of the player is top notch and it is also sufficiently slim and light to be slipped into your pocket and carried around everywhere with you.

Performance:
Zen has now thrown support for the installation of additional software. They also provide the SDK for developers, allowing them to develop applications. The player comes integrated with a Sudoku game. Unfortunately, the number of available applications on the platform are few when compared the huge app database of the ipod touch. I do not want to sound cynical, but I really can not see the platform under the road from the App Store like the ipod, perhaps because the Zen X-Fi2 does not sell as much as the iPod touch, but hey who want to run lot of apps on a music player, its just wants to play music and play videos.

 Price:
The Creative Zen X-Fi2 is priced at Rs. 8999 (8 GB), 11,999 (16 GB) and 14,999 (32 GB).

This is where the Creative Zen beats the ipod touch. The price is phenomenal and much less when compared to the ipod, for all the features it has to offer.

Final Stand:
I'll be honest, although I like the previous Zen players I did not like the X-Fi2 because of the laggy UI, but I can say one thing, even though it lagged a bit, it did what it is supposed to do, the music quality is extremely good, even better than the ipods. May be it will be lot better if Creative gives an update to fix it and make it truly God like. Because most of the times, a simple bug fix update will make electronic devices really good.

]]> aristo@88db.co.in (Admin) Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:22:03 GMT http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1841-creative-zen-xfi2-music-player http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1643-apple-ipod-touch-music-player-review

Apple ipod touch, the stylized touch screen cutting edge technology music player.
Music players have evolved in itself with the growing technology. The very plan of the device is to listen to the music alone on the go, with a plugged in head phones

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]]> sukanyav@88db.com (Sukanya Varadan) Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:35:25 GMT http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1643-apple-ipod-touch-music-player-review http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1640-new-mp3-players-stylized-trendy-gadgets

Technology and innovation goes hand in hand. These days gadget freaks are crazy about knowing the latest in the market and wants to acquire the best of the gadgets

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]]> aristo@88db.co.in (Admin) Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:27:36 GMT http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/technology/mp3-players/1640-new-mp3-players-stylized-trendy-gadgets