GOTY 2010 - Portable Media Players

Yesterday, we posted a list of mp3 players that made it to our GOTY 2010. Today, we are going to take it further by naming the top PMPs of 2010. Unlike mp3 players, making a choice for the top three PMPs was a bit hard. There were good players, bad players and “expected-good-but-turned-bad” players (aka the Cowon X7).

Nevertheless, even with all the ups and downs we’ve seen, there were some really good PMPs that fought it out for the top spot and are on display today. Take a look.

Cowon J3 – Topping the List

PMP of the Year! Take a bow J3

Cowon probably have made a mistake with the X7, but they’ve always impressed us with their exceptional sound and video quality. The J3 is one PMP that does well in each and every respect that it’s supposed to. The player supports nearly every audio format and has various audio settings from Jet effect 3.0 Audio to the BBE+ Engine which enhances audio quality to the max. The 3.3-inch AMOLED Display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels makes watching videos a treat to the eyes, plus it plays most videos including the DivX and XviD. At prices of Rs. 10,750, Rs. 12,500 and Rs. 14,500 for the 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB respectively, this device is an absolute steal!

Apple iPod Touch 4G – Almost made it to the top

Games and wi-fi plus some music and videos

It was a tough choice to place the J3 over the iPod Touch and the reason the Touch comes second is simply because the J3 beats it hands-down in terms of the formats it supports. If a comparison were to be made between the two as portable devices, the Touch probably have taken top spot, but as a Portable Media player the J3 trumps the Touch. The iPod Touch 4G has various features such as Face Time on a high resolution Retina Display and has a big catalogue of awesome apps and games, which makes the iPod Touch a great option if music and videos are not your only concerns. The 8 GB variant is priced at Rs. 12,250, the 32 GB comes for Rs. 14,900 and the 64 GB version comes for Rs. 19,300.
Creative Zen X-Fi Style – Worthy enough of a bronze

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Coming third ain’t bad, ask Zen X-Fi Style…

Creative’s PMPs have been very consistent in performance. The Zen X-Fi Style is one such media player. Small in size, the X-Fi Style does very well in terms of audio quality but dips a bit when it comes to playing videos. Nevertheless, supporting many audio and video formats and boasting of added features like syncing contacts, etc. makes this a very worthy PMP to have. A price of Rs. 8,999 for the 16 GB version makes it the best value you can get at such a low price.

Hon. Mention
This section is for those devices which couldn’t quite make it to the GOTY 2010 list, but definitely deserve a recommendation. The one that clearly deserves a mention is the..
Sony Walkman NWZ-A845 – Could have made it to the top three

Better luck next time.. oh wait

Probably one of the most underrated PMPs, the A845 is what you’re looking for when it comes to a standard PMP. The A845 offers clear and loud music and has crisp video quality thanks to its OLED screen. The only glitch is that you have to carry a file converter as the A845 doesn’t support many audio and video formats. The 16GB version is priced at Rs. 11,990.

You can check out the spec sheet below to see how the devices fare against each other.

Click to enlarge

To conclude, the GOTY 2010 Portable Media Players list has the most worthy players to come out this year. As mentioned earlier, making a choice was quite tough but eventually the devices took the spots we felt they deserved.

We certainly hope you agree with our choices for portable media players. And oh yes, with about 3 days left for Christmas, a very warm Seasons Greetings to all our readers!