The iPod Nano 5G can now record up to 8 hours of video and supports all H.264 and MPEG-4 formats available in 30-FPS and a resolution of 640×480. He could actually be right. The quality is still outstanding for a MP3 Player. Also you can forget about the nightmare of having to convert your cellphone recorded AVI or MPG videos to the Apple format.

iPod Nano 5G new features

Now you have the option of adding special effects to your videos as you scroll through, transfer them to your PC or MAC and upload them to Youtube or Facebook. The missing FM dial now present in this model lets you listen to your favorite shows and current music. It has the very intelligent feature of showing you what and who you’re listening and you can hit pause for 15 minutes, just as if you were pausing a DVR recording.

The device now comes with a mic for voice recording. You can record voice memos, classes, interviews and anything of the sort in stereo sound MP3 files.

Other improved feature is the iTunes tagging. You can tag the songs and have them as sort of a bookmark for easier access, given that you would have around 2000+ songs, which is always a plus is you don’t want to scroll around for that specific artist or album or song.

iPod Nano 5G advantages

And for fitness and casual jogging enthusiasts, the iPod Nano 5G comes with a pedometer that marks every step you take during your routine and the voice over feature that tells you the artist and the song you’re currently listening. It doesn’t matter which language the song is, VoiceOver supports over 30 languages.

One thing I noticed in relation to the 4G model is that the battery lasts less than the advertised 24 hours of music and 5 hours of video playback. And, if you want to use your docking station, you’ll have to buy another one since the output was reversed in order for the video and mic to fit in.

Such are the downsides of adding new features without considering thoroughly their impact in design and thinking only of getting something out quickly.

All in all, just when you thought they couldn’t improve more the best sold iPod model ever, Apple can still come with new improved features that set them above the competence.

This model comes in 2, 4 and 8GB if you use an additional memory card. The design is simple yet fashionable with materials such as a velvet-like rubber that prevents dirt and dust from getting on the device, not to mention slipping out of nothing.

SanDisk Sansa Fuze features
The control wheel is made of a light matte plastic that allows for more control, instead of the rubber one. The screen of the Fuze model is inferior in resolution to the View (224×176 pixels) but at least is crisper and less shimmery or cheap looking than its predecessor.

The battery can last 24 hours but the video definitely falls short of the announced 5 hours. But you will be impressed by the responsiveness of the user interface. It makes it more straight forward and intuitive to use. You can go through the menus with ease either by rotating the wheel or clicking it up and down.

SanDisk Sansa Fuze downsides
The supported audio formats are MP3, WMA, WAV and AA. Sound quality is great, equal or better than the Clip. The entire spectrum of highs and lows is clear. If you want to improve the whole experience, you can buy better headphones.

The video only supports MPEG-4 at 20 FPS Divx. Not functional at all and again it falls on the ‘bonus feature’. Although you can use the Sansa media converter to make it fit, any long file can easily reach 1 GB in size. Is this worth your time? No. Just as the rate and bookmark option. For some reason you can do bookmark videos but not songs.

But great improvements that make up for it are the excellent reception of the FM radio, the more stable firmware, the audiobook and podcast support, the quasi photo viewer, the voice recording, and the microSD slot that can allow you to add up to 32GB of memory.

Audiobooks and podcasts can be organized and you can pause and play between each period. You can record on WAV files but the device doesn’t tell you the duration until you transfer it to the pc.

Sony Walkman NWZ-A828 features

The menus are completely user friendly this time around, and the navigation pad consists only of four buttons, with the back and option button at both sides of the device, slimmer and bigger than its predecessors. There’s also a button for activating/deactivating the Bluetooth feature.

The headphones that come with it will still require more revisions, though. It looks as if Sony hasn’t paid enough attention and dedication to the quality of the sound, which would have made this model even more outstanding.

BUT, if you buy a pair of extra headphones you will really appreciate the quality of the sound, so it’s not a lost cause at all.

Keep in mind that this MP3 player comes with a proprietary USB cable, so in case you lose it, you’ll have to find the original again at a specialized retailer. As for the supported formats, they still continue to include MP3, WMA and AAC, while the video supports MPEG-4 and H.264. You can also see pics of album formats without any difficulties that other models have.

Sony Walkman NWZ-A828 downsides

One considerable problem with the video formats, though, is that it’s really picky when recognizing the H.264 format, because of the strict properties limits established for files.

Unless you use a very specific and proved converter, it’s not going to work, unless you already have the videos is that pure format. A bit of a turn-off, but you can work it around.

You can create your playlists with Windows Media Player and sync it with the MP3 player, but not exactly on the interface itself. Other good option is that you can manage your feeds through the synchronizing feature with your PC, be it podcasts (you can hear them in good and clear quality), pictures and/or videos.

Despite not having FM radio, voice recording or gapless playback as in other models, this is definitely a step up since Sony concentrated on having the best basic main features, rather than having many random ones that don’t work in a competitive way. The battery lasts a good 36 hours of audio and 10 hours of video.

Overall, it’s a good MP3 player but maybe too expensive for what it offers, given the fact that despite the improvements, there’s not really much to play around with. iPods are still more competitive in that sense.

The design is discrete but functional, contrary to some flashier and complicated designs that try to reinvent the wheel. The display has a great QVGA 320×240 quality that can be used in landscape orientation. The videos and photos can be seen in a crisp condition, as they’re seen in good detail and saturation.

Sony Walkman NWZ-A810 features

As for the interface, the menus are simple yet well organized; the icons highlight themselves as you scroll through them, using the three main circular buttons that represent the play/pause; the power/option and the back/home buttons. There’s also a volume rocker on one edge of the device and even a screensaver setting that displays time and date. The dock connection and the hold switch are located in the back of the device.

The player supports WMA, WMP, JPEG, MPEG4, MP3 and AAC formats as well as Rhapsody. There’s no FM tuner or voice recorder, and no memory expansion on these Sony Walkman models as of yet, going along with the basic but functional mentality. You get a pair of DR-EX082 headphones instead, saving you the time and money on getting a pair of better quality ones. But there’s a little problem. They’re extremely short and that forces you to keep it near you at all times.

Sony Walkman NWZ-A810 issues

You have also plenty of equalizer options, and special enhancement implements. You can set it on the Time Machine Shuffle mode to play all songs randomly from the playlist by year. The battery lasts a good 36 hours for songs and 8 hours for video.

Overall, the performance is great, especially regarding the sound. It doesn’t miss the bass and mid levels as other MP3 players today that completely miss the mark.

On the other hand, this can be probably one of the best Samsung mp3 you can ever get. At a great price of around $75-80, you can get one of 16 Gb in capacity, aside from the available models of 4GB and 8GB. Not bad at all, yet it has it downsides that can still be overlooked. The four way control touch pad is too sensitive but that happens to almost every device that has implemented that feature, and still you can get used to it with all of its particular intuitive tricks.

Samsung YP-Q1 Diamond mp3 player issues

Other things that may need to be revised are the earphones. A more elaborated quality wouldn’t hurt and could add to the overall experience that the product brings to the table. Thus, sound quality is what really suffers here, as it’s completely flat, without depth, and inferior to what Creative Labs, Sony, and Apple usually offer, which is a lazy shame, given that the impressive design could set you up for something better. You can still buy sound isolating earphones if you want to make up for it.

The formats it supports are MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG and WMA, which I don’t have any complaint about. But supporting AAC and WAV files would have made it better, I guess. The video encoding works and looks great in the 61mm, 2.4 inch QVGA that glows blue. Samsung never fails in this

You can see Windows Media Player videos extremely well for the price you’re paying, at a resolution of 320×240 pixels and a bit rate of 768 Kbps. So, it shouldn’t be a problem to see converted videos and the like, because this is the only format it supports.

Samsung YP-Q1 Diamond mp3 player features

As for the interface per se, it’s coated with the signature Samsung black gloss, a solid chassis that seemingly makes it resistant to falls. The only problem: it can get dirty easily because of the fingerprints, so make sure you use a protective case or glove. You have a lock switch on the right side and an incorporated little microphone for voice recording on the back, that can record at 128 Kbps with a bit of distorted quality, as long as it’s a minimal of 3 seconds of duration.
The FM radio can record live and internal data and export them as well as stereo 128Kbps MP3 files. Overall, it’s an easy-to-use MP3 player. Lightweight and relatively small, the ultimately sharp and crisp screen is the main feature, actually. It could be arguably as easy to use as an iPod Touch.

The buttons work this way: press once for play or pause, two to skip to the next song, three times to go back and then holding down for a second to hear the name of the song and the artist.

Apple iPod Shuffle 4th generation features

The switch allows you to turn power on, off and the other puts it on hold. The same little lights tell you about the battery and if the iPod is on, pretty much the same as the previous model. Apple really oversimplified it with this one, though.

Yes, this is definitely a love-it or hate-it problem. That’s the mistake Apple made, polarizing the Shuffle followers into two groups: the ones that stuck to the 3G model, or updated to the appeal of the iPod Nano Chromatic, or the ones that liked this new approach and bought it. Neither is right nor wrong, just a matter of personal tastes.

Apple iPod Shuffle 4th generation common problems

Still, this product has been acclaimed for being the best for workouts, daily chores and actually being very resistant to humidity conditions, something you wouldn’t bet the more sophisticated iPod Nano, or iPod Touch to be.

The worst thing I’ve ever heard of this model is the earphones. They seem to be the flattest ever and you should bother buying a new set of better ones from another brand. I don’t blame them since Apple surely wanted to make the cheapest and smallest mp3 player possible at the point of absurdity. I’m really unsure that this costs the price of $74. If anything, it should cost $50.

If you like to work out, hear only certain songs, if you like the concept of shuffling per se, don’t need much space, and like to feel that you’re not really carrying a mp3 player in your pocket, given the way it easily clings to clothes like it’s barely there, then the 4th generation iPod shuffle is for you.

This mp3 player is exactly what you need if your look for something small, light-weighted, not expensive, and not Apple if you’re completely anti-Apple. The MP305-2G has advantages such as a long battery life (it uses barely an AAA battery) and it’s really easy to use, once you got the grip of it.

The downside of the Coby MP305-2G model

And speaking of that, a problem arises with the user interface, sometimes difficult to understand and handle. You can set separate folders for each album and each artist, but it gets complicated when you want to go from one album to another or from one artist to another.

For this price, you surely can’t expect fast transitions and maybe you’d have to scroll song by song to find what you want to hear in the moment, so you can’t exactly find and hear that specific song, unless it pops up quickly.

Advantages of Coby MP305-2G MP3 player

Otherwise, if you only keep it in shuffle mode, you just have to press “on”, then “music”, then “play” and that’s it. You may afford to look for better earphones since the ones by default are just plain below average, so that’s the only aspect in which cheap price equals poor quality product.

Coby’s model also comes with the always handy FM radio and voice recorder feature, and the sound quality is probably the best asset of this mp3 player, as it’s completely clean and it rarely distorts, which is a plus if you’d want to compare it to more elaborated models and brands. The same goes for the USB mode that allows you to easily copy songs from the PC and viceversa.

If you are a book listener, though, this mp3 player is not for you, since it can’t process long-length tracks well as it sometimes skips track or doesn’t really process the file.

In conclusion, Coby’s MP305-2G player it’s an ok overall product if you want a relatively good quality/price exchange.

Why? The sound quality of this E series player is astounding, exceptional, and it easily outbests the iPod in those regards. You can listen to songs and even rock concerts and you will inevitably feel that you are there, in the place the track was recorded! This is because of the 5-channel equalizer feature.

However, the interface is what ruins all. The fast forward and fast rewind feature is the most troublesome. If you hold down any of those buttons for a long time, the speed of increasing or decreasing the speed of the song is terribly slow.

Sony Walkman E-340 Video MP3 Player troubleshooting

One trick to overcome this, though, is to pause the track and then you can fast forward or fast rewind a little faster. Other issue is that when you’re listening to a track, the total track length isn’t displayed, neither a countdown to the end of it. The playlists can only be created when you’re not listening to anything.

These silly defects are completely unnecessary, careless and have no excuse. If you want to deliver a better product, it’s not about the sound quality only but about the whole experience. That would have marked a more significant competitive difference with iPod and similar others. At least you can search through music in organized folders, or you have the tag structure, which is very functional.

Using Sony Walkman E-340 Video MP3 Player

If you have a PC, you can use Windows Media Player or similar to transfers songs, concerts or audiobooks to the player with no issues, other than the fact that Windows Media Player changes the cover image and the track titles if they are not registered within the Microsoft server, thus set yourself for a mess.

Yet, the price is adequate for what it offers ($75) and an interesting warranty of 2-3 years in which you can replace it entirely for an additional fee. I don’t know how useful would this be if new, more sophisticated models come to the market in less than this time period (and we know it does!), but to each his own.

This 8gb, second generation Clip+ model is a great deal for all it offers and it’s certainly an upgrade from the first generation.

With expandable memory, an FM radio tuner with more than 40 presets, a good voice recorder, and such sound quality features such as a basic equalizer, it pretty much accepts all sub-formats of mp3, so there are no issues in those regards as some other brands have.

SanDisk Sansa Clip+ main features

You don’t really have to plug it to the computer as it offers the option of using flash card slots than can be chargeable and changeable, the same way a digital camera pendrive works. Another great feature is the slotRadio cards. You could get more than 1,000 songs preloaded. It features handcrafted playlists and hundreds of artists from top music charts from any genre and artist you want.

Beware of the clip it comes with, as it’s weaker than it looks. It breaks easily if you bend it too much. It doesn’t really cling well to clothing. The battery life is the only real problem with this model as it doesn’t seem to last as much as the Fuze or even the Sansa 1G model, forget about the 14-15 hours it says on the box or the manual.

The downsides of SanDisk Sansa Clip+

The charging cord is funnily short for no apparent reason. But still, you can get the longer chords available on the market if you’re not comfortable with it. But the updated ergonomy for the square trackpad-style buttons still compensates for it all, as it makes the interface easier to use, actually. You can search for songs easily and switch through artists with ease.

With a great sound quality, this could be THE player for audio books, if you don’t look for anything fancy with touch screens. At the current price of $61,95, this tiny mp3 player with big music is definitely worth it.

From simply looking at the 3rd generation Apple iPod touch, there would be no way to probably differentiate it from its predecessor. And apart from seeing a few minor external changes, the new model’s engraving should serve as the most visible of those changes.

However, from a general standpoint, the new Apple iPod touch version is more enhanced, or shall we say refined, as its predecessor, and many of the quirks of the previous versions have either been removed, or refined, to make user experience a much better and more relaxing one.

New Features That Make The New iPod touch A Little Better

The New 3rd generation Apple iPod touch has new add-ins, which include Apple’s earphone’s with remote and mic. The new iPod’s earphones are made from hard plastic, and feature a thinner and more slippery shell.  However, they still sound, look and perform exactly the same as the previous model.

The headphone plugs also provide two volume buttons, a central button that does play, pause, skip and track, as well as a microphone that can be used for voice recording and other functions.

Improved Product Dimensions

What makes the new Apple iPod version different from its predecessor is that it has a more slim design.  It measures 110 x 61.8 x 8.5 mm, but still weighs the same at 115 grams.

The phone still features the same crisp and pixel-dense 3.5 inch screen, and continues to support formats such as MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and other common formats. It also supports JPEG, BMP, TIFF and GIF image formats, as well as the MPEG video format

New Hardware Promises 50% More Performance

The new Apple iPod touch has made significant changes in its hardware. The changes are made to ensure that it operates 50% faster than the previous model, and supports better graphics using the Open GL ES 2.0. Product designers have also replaced the device’s Central Processing Unit (CPU) and graphics processor, and overhauled the phone’s clock to speeds of about 800 MHZ, as well as add a new bevy of graphics features to its collection.

Improved Game Performance

The 3rd generation Apple iPod touch’s game performance has also been enhanced, as the phone’s graphics arsenal has been enhanced and added. Games such as Ngmoco’s Star Defense run faster and more flawless, offer a slightly improved frame rate, and afford users faster speeds and smooth player movements, as well as give better pixel quality.

Overall, the load times and frame rates are much improved, and once users get into each game, the playing portions and frames look and feel exactly the same.

What makes it a better game player is that it has a built-in accelerometer, an astounding multi-user interface, and superb graphics performance, as well as cover more than 20,000 game and entertainment titles.

The new Apple iPod touch version is sure to offer users the ability to play high-performance multi player games, with their neighbors and with people overseas.  If a user wants to buy new games, then he can easily do this by adding new game titles from the App store, at anytime and anywhere using WiFi.

Improved Accessibility

The new Apple iPod touch is also known to offer users better accessibility.  Accessibility is seen in the provision of magnification, a Mono audio downmixing mode for those who have problems hearing, screen color inverting, and other helpful add-ons.  While it may be as imperfect as its predecessor, the phone’s accessibility is sure to be a plus factor, and will surely be applauded by both critics and die-hard Apple fans.

Battery Performs Much Like The Previous Version

While the first two Apple iPod touch versions showed marked improvement in battery life,  the newer Apple iPod touch version simply made a few enhancements . While the first two versions delivered from 28 to 36 hours of battery time, the 3rd Generation version was made to deliver 30 hours of audio time, as well as 6 hours of video time.

While critics worried about this development, since it made the new model more prone to underperforming, new tests done to determine the actual battery lifespan were promising.

The new Apple iPod touch delivered 30 hours and 20 minutes of audio and video time, which merely overshot the company’s promise for a 30-hour delivery time.  What’s good is that when the WiFi feature was turned on, the phone’s audio time increased by two hours and four minutes, making the total battery time go up to 32 hours and 24 minutes.

The new phone’s “Battery Percentage” option on the other hand, is a welcome addition.  This unique feature allows for the precise and efficient measurement of the phone’s remaining battery power. This helps users manage their device in a real-time setting, and should be a wonderful barometer for the phone’s battery performance.

New Software Features That Sharpen The 3rd Generation Version

The 3rd generation Apple iPod touch has new specific software features that are not supported by the two previous versions. It has Voice Control, that allows users to effectively control the earphone’s main button, and not the phone’s Home button, and also activates a feature that allow you to do voice commands, like “play songs by Dave Mathews” or “play back the first song on the list”. Although the new voice control command is not that perfect when it comes to analyzing voice commands, it does well when it comes to properly speaking the commands.

New Screen Is Brighter And More Colorful

The new Apple iPod touch definitely improves when it comes to the quality of its screen. If it’s viewed directly on the center, the new phone’s screen is much brighter, colorful and more appropriate for watching games and videos.

The 2009 model basically has a neutral white touch to the screen, and has a slightly pink tone, and features a modest and a little shallow off-center viewing angle, which critics argue creates a negative “black” effect, which is the same thing that happened to the early iPod versions.

A More-Improved Entertainment And Communication Tool

The 3rd Generation iPod touch is a workhorse when it comes to providing communications and entertainment. It’s great for playing your favorite TV show, movie, podcast and music videos.  For music lovers, the new phone features the Cover Flow, Shake To Shuffle, as well as access to the iTunes store.  It also supports software such as Genius Mixes, which is good for creating 12 varieties of endless mixes of songs from the ITunes library.

Its wonderful 3.5 inch wide screen is also perfect for screening TV shows, movies and music videos.  I really like the fact that we can get instant access to a really large catalog of songs, TV shows and blockbuster movies, which we can buy and easily download on the new Apple iPod touch player.

The 2009 8 GB model is famous for having the ability to hold up to 10,00 photos, 1,750 songs, 10 hours of video. The 32 GB model holds much more.  It can carry up to 14,000 songs,90,000 photographs and up to 40 hours of video. The 8, 32 and 64 GB models run up to 50 percent faster than the previous versions, as well a support better and more enhanced graphics using the Open GLES 2.0 system.

It’s Also A Great Pocket Computer

What makes the iPod touch a notch above the rest is that it also serves as your own mini-computer of sorts. Here, you can do Web browsing, email, organize your contacts, manage your calendars, and go to social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Twitter.

It’s award-winning browser makes it easy to surf the Worldwide Web, like no other pocket PC can offer you. It also comes with the latest iPhone software, which include Cut, Copy and Paste, Spotlight Search, which allows you to search across iPod touch or within your mail and contacts, and also includes a landscape keyboard for Mail, Notes And Safari.

While I don’t need to keep on telling you just how improved, and awesome the new iPod touch version is, I’d better let the 20 million buyers tell you how enthralled they are with using it. While the new design may still show some frustrating quirks, especially for those who want to be in complete control of the gadgets they buy, the slickness and ease-of-use, as well as accessibility of the new phone will be sure to make up for these few quirks.

What’s good is that you’ll have access to a bigger library of songs, movies and music videos, as well as store more songs, and have a much longer audio and video play time. Well, that would be enough to assuage the fears of Apple purists, and put some smiles on the faces of tech skeptics.