Best MP3 players

Everyone's got different priorities when it comes to portable music players. CNET.com.au picks the best MP3 players for sound quality, battery life, ease-of-use and overall features.

There are a lot of factors which influence one's MP3 player purchase. The four most important are audio quality, battery life, ease-of-use and features. So, to help you out, we've chosen the best player for each category. Aesthetics also plays a huge part in the decision, but beauty, as they say in the classics, is in the eye of the beholder.

Best for sound quality: Creative's Zen Vision:M has the best sound quality you can get in an MP3 player. Indeed, all Creative's players excel at audio reproduction, most likely the result of its history of producing excellent computer soundcards. The Vision:M also looks great and supports loads of useful media formats, and is by far the main competitor to Apple's iPod. If you're passionate about sound quality, get a Creative Zen Vision:M.

Best for long battery life: Sony's A-series video Walkmans -- 2GB NW-A805, 4GB NW-A806 and 8GB NW-A808 -- have one of the longest-lasting batteries around. Thirty hours of continuous music or seven hours of continuous full-screen video, and only three hours for a completely full charge. This thrashed the iPod for battery performance. It's also a lovely player with some great features and a smart design.

Best for ease-of-use: Apple's iPod is above any other player for sheer useability, and its iconic appearance is undeniably stylish. The innovative Click Wheel is a God-send for navigating the massive libraries the player can store, and the simple menus -- while conceptually taken from Creative -- are unhindered in their clarity and implementation. There's the smaller and less capacious iPod nano, which also sport the same easy-to-use interface. And if we had a category for the widest range of accessories, the iPod family would blitz it in.

Best for features: The Creative Zen Vision:W may not be slimmest MP3 player on the block but it sure does have a feature-packed punch. In addition to playing back a variety of music formats, it sports an FM tuner, voice recorder and handles most popular video formats (DivX, XviD, MPEG and WMV). With its large 4.3-inch widescreen LCD display and TV-out, it's pretty handy as a portable video player (PVP). To cap it all off it has a CompactFlash slot, which makes it a good backup device for photographers on holiday.

By Derek Fung and Nate Lanxon on 20 July 2007

URL: http://www.cnet.com.au/best-mp3-players-339280245.htm