The A820 series is Sony’s latest and flagship in the Walkman line up. As the head honcho of the family, the A820 is the first to sport Bluetooth audio. Unlike recent Samsung players which support extended Bluetooth features, this Sony only supports Bluetooth audio transfer and control. If you have used any of the more recent Sony Walkmans you will get a near identical experience since the interface and the features are the same. The only new thing here is the addition of Bluetooth, larger screen, and different form factor.

With that said, this review will be slightly abridged since have pretty much covered the majority of the A820 in the A810 and S610 reviews. This review will focus mainly on what makes this player stand out from the other Sony Walkmans.

The Zen Stone and Stone Plus was successful when first released in terms of price and features- giving them an edge over the iPod Shuffle. Since then the Sansa Clip and the price cut of the Shuffle have given the Stones more noticeable competition, so it was a pretty good move by Creative when they recently upgraded both Stones to new versions with better battery and an integrated speaker.

The upgrade is noticeable, but not all of the previous model's flaws have been fixed. The menus are still slow, and the music browsing hasn't been improved. Read on to see if the new features make up for the bad.

Meet the Insignia Pilot- Best Buy's latest budget DAP which was covertly introduced late last year (seriously, not even a press release?). The Pilot is the successor to the Insignia NS-DV series of players, which gained somewhat of a cult following on the Internet, particularly in our own forums. The Pilot sports a 2.4” 262K color display and is available in both 4GB, and 8GB capacities. The Pilot also offers a few features which rival those of more expensive players such as Bluetooth support, an SDHC card slot, RDS support, video-out, and dual headphone jacks.

The Pilot is, however, still a budget DAP, and probably won't be making your Zune wielding friends jealous any time soon. But, if you're looking for a solid no-frills player for every-day use, the Pilot might just be for you.

Ultrasone is one of the lesser known, yet quite respected, German headphone manufacturers. They just released the newest member of their mid-ranged product line of closed headphones, the HFI-780. Sporting low impedance, decent sensitivity, foldable design, and good isolation, the HFI-780 work well with even the weakest powered MP3 players. This makes them a viable alternative to the ubiquitous in-ear phones and earbuds usually seen with portable players. For a price of $250 (€195) they deliver sound quality that can hardly be matched by small in-ear phones in the same price range - or even above. Their form factor might appeal to people that don’t feel comfortable sticking tiny buds into their ear canals, but still want good isolation and portability.

Enough of the basics, let’s see in depth what they’re all about…

There was a gap that needed to be filled in the Sansa product line in between the Clip and the View. This gap was filled by the Fuze with a bigger screen, more capacity, and a memory slot compared to the Clip; but it wasn’t quite the flagship as the View with a lower resolution screen, smaller size, smaller capacities, and weaker video playback abilities.

Falling nicely in between the two the Fuze is a welcome member to the family with many improvements all around- even outperforming the View in some respects. If you would like the full scoop, read on, and I will break it all down for you.

One of my favorite gadgets was the Mvix 5000U- it was one of Mvix’s first media boxes released a few years ago. The only time it was disconnected was so it could be filled with more media. The interface was crude but it really handled playback well especially the DVD ISO I kept ripping to the internal hard drive. The pain of it was I had to keep running it back and from my living room to my office to keep it hard drive filled with my latest videos.

The MX-760HD came along with network support solving my one major complaint. But the 5000U was still running strong so I felt no need to upgrade. Now enter the MX-780HD. I spotted the newest member of the family at CES 2008- it added HDMI and best of all it was black so it matched the rest of my entertainment center (Trivial, to some, but I know there are some of you that understand). I recently got a new TV with more HDMI ports so I decided it is time for an upgrade.

Iriver showed off many new devices at CES 2008 and from what I was told they actually plan on playing a bit more in the US market. An interesting device they showed off was the W7, with a 3” 260k color, 480 x 272 pixel touch screen. The player is flash based in 4GB and 8GB capacities with the option to add miniSD memory.

The W7 is a solid piece of hardware and an interesting interface that is basically a miniaturized media player typically found on a desktop. But, I think this player may only appeal to the hardcore gadget geek and one that is a big fan of a stylus interface.

The E100 will be iriver’s first player to be released in the US since the clix2, which I was very fond of. This player comes in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities in several different modern colors. Audio codec is supreme supporting all the major licensed and open source file types. Video codec support is also very good, but most of the time conversion is necessary to conform to the 320x240 262k color screen.

There is a lot of familiarity with this player and keeps well to the iriver style and functionality. Do however keep in mind that iriver is trying to reach the lower flash player market and in doing so they had to sacrifice slightly on quality. Read on for an in-depth look at the iriver E100.

Sony’s S610 is their low man on the totem pole in the new line of video flash players sporting 2, 4, and 8GB capacities. This is last year’s model but Sony has decided to keep it around to accompany the newer 2.4” screened Bluetooth players. But don’t let the “last year’s model” deter you from purchasing. The S610 is by no means out of date- features, sound quality, and video playback are comparable to most players currently on the market.

If you read the A810 review, you may experience a bit of déjà vu since these two players share similar features and navigation. The S610 may be a good alternative if you are looking for an FM radio and a slightly more compact form factor.

Sony never got too much play on this site since Sony locked all of their MP3 players into their proprietary media player SonicStage. I love their designs, sound quality, and battery life but SonicStage was so unbelievably terrible it kept me from picking up any of their players. Sony finally wised up and joined the rest of the portable music world making their devices MTP, thus being compatible with most media players and music services.

Sony will soon release the A820, an upgraded version with Bluetooth, larger screen, and larger capacities. However, the A810 should not be pushed aside; it is still a very viable MP3 player that will still keep up with anything in its class. It is a great choice for people not needing all the bells and whistles of its newer sibling.

The iAudio A3 is Cowon's flagship PMP with a very thorough list of supported codecs in both music and video. The 800x480 16.7 million color screen is crisp and will do justice to your video collection. There is a lot of good going on with the A3, and it's probably the best PMP of its size on the market.

However, the A3 is still has plenty of issues. The user interface is weak (as is many of Cowon's interfaces), the firmware could use some work and the advertised 1280x720 HD playback is anything but refined. Again, the A3 is a great PMP, but read on for the caution areas.

The Sansa View is SanDisk’s flagship flash MP3 player with the ability to playback video on its 240x320 64k color screen. What makes the Sansa View interesting is its high capacity flash memory along with memory expansion putting it in close rivalry to hard drive based players. The other thing going for the View is the “bang for the buck” factor. It may not be a high end player, but it is one of the best values on the market.

Throughout the review I many times compare the View to the e200 because it is basically an updated and improved e200- in all the good ways but some of the bad ways as well. If you are looking to upgrade your e200 or are looking for an inexpensive player with a lot of features, read on to see if the Sansa View is for you.

The Korean audio brand CrossRoads and their Singaporean distributor Jaben gained quite some positive reputation for their MylarOne line of canalphones. Their now discontinued X3 and XB phone variants are said to be among the really good choices in the $60 price range of in ear phones. Recently, CrossRoads upgraded their product line with the newly introduced X3i and XBi models. The X3i is the more "linear" sounding model, while the XBi is the bass heavier one. Let's see if they live up to the hype and reputation of the former MylarOne phones...

The first Zune was something rushed to the market and it showed. The first generation Zune lacked anything outstanding; it really did not offer anything above what the competition was doing. The second time around I am seeing something a bit more impressive. The hardware has been updated and features have been added. The Zune is much more social this time around with the ability to share your listening preferences online. It has also tightly and seamlessly integrated podcasting and the wi-fi has finally been put to good use with wireless sync.

There is a lot of cool stuff going on with the Zune but there is a lot also that will be missed with the hardcore DAP crowd. Read on, let me show you what the Zune is all about.

The ibiza Rhapsody is another attempt at direct wireless downloads- a path that has been blazed by the MusicGremlin and the Sansa Connect. I had a chance to check out this player last year at CES 2007 and it was one of the sexiest designs I have seen on an MP3 player. However, to cut production costs the ibiza lost its slick solid aluminum feel and just became just a pretty good looking player. Even though some of the design was lost, the many features and user interface remained intact. So how does it stack up against the pioneers or the wireless direct download, and is it worth the premium price tag? Read on…