Portable Audio/Video Player Buying Guide

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Portable Audio/Video Player Buying Guide

Rohan Naravane, Nov 01, 2007 1610 hrs IST

Diwali time is just around the corner. How about gifting yourself an MP3 player?

3k to 5k Range:

In this range, the capacities would be bumped up to 2 GB minimum, and some models would feature a color LCD display with video playback capabilities.

Transcend T.Sonic 840 4 GB - Rs. 4500

The Transcend T.Sonic 840 is an update to the T.sonic 820 player. This one tries to improve upon the flaws that the latter had. T.sonic 840 is trendy and has a iPod-ish appearance. Its exterior consists of a mirrored surface and metal body. It feels sturdy, but it is a little heavy for a player of that size (weighing at about 70g thanks to the part metal body). It has a very bright 1.8-inch color TFT-LCD high resolution screen which delivers good clarity. Although it supports video playback, watching videos on the small screen is not a very satisfying experience. The flawed keypad that the T.sonic 820 had on its face has been replaced by an easy-to-use 3-phase wheel, which is somewhat similar to the Jog-dial navigation on Sony Ericsson smart phones.

The player supports MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10 (subscription music), and WAV music formats; JPG and BMP photo formats; TXT format for e-books, and the MTV video format. An MTV Converter software is provided to convert all your videos into the this format. Other features include an FM Tuner, one-touch voice recorder, karaoke lyrics-sync, equalizer presets, and custom equalizer settings among other small additions.
The provided headphones are average which hampers the existing average sound quality. The bass effect produced from the default pair is not so good. But as I mentioned above in the T.sonic 630 overview, the sound quality can be improved with the use of better earphones like Creative EP-630 or Cresyn E630-SN, both selling for about 950 bucks.
With its price hovering at about Rs. 4500 for 4 GB, this is the best player with respect to the price/capacity/features ratio. Although it's heavier than the new iPod Nano and doesn't have a large screen as well, it performs just fine as a music player with a large capacity.

Sony NW-S205F/B 2 GB - Rs. 4990

Sony's cigar shaped NW-S205F is a walkman designed for agile beings. It's no ordinary player -- It's sturdy and water resistant. The player looks simply stunning due to its unique design. It has a calorie counter, a stop-watch, a distance counter, a music pacer function, and a sports mode setting. The bundled earphones are of good quality, comfortable, and are specially designed for a secure fit with their behind-the-ear design. An arm-band is included which clasps the player to your body well while jogging and exercising.

This one's a nice MP3 player. The sound quality is good. The user interface is easy to use. The music transfer speeds are good over the USB 2.0 interface. Its audio enhancements include a couple of Equalizer presets and volume normalization for all tracks. Another unique feature is the 3 minute turbo-charge mode for approximately 3 hours of play-time. It gets fully charged in 45 minutes. The player's battery lasts a week with an average usage of a little over 2 hours daily. It also features power-saving modes for a boost in its battery life.

On the darker aspects of the player, firstly, it does not support the USB Mass Storage mode to simply drag-n-drop songs. One can sync songs onto the device using Sony's SonicStage software only. Further, the SonicStage software is not very user-friendly, which again spoils the data-transfer experience. Lastly, one can get players from competitors that feature double the memory and video playback as well for the same price as this one.

Priced at a little less than Rs. 5000, this player wouldn't qualify as a bang-for-the-buck product. But this Walkman is suited for a different breed of people. It's a hardcore audio player for people who want excellent audio quality and something that can withstand the forces of nature to an extent and be a perfect workout-companion.