In search of the ultimate PMP (Personal Media Player)

From the comfort of the sofa at home, with sleet (snow mixed with rain) falling outside, I dream of a device which would bring the ultimate audio-visual experience to me. Just for the information, I have been in the hunt of the perfect PMP. This is my current set of devices I have :

• 5 GB Creative Zen Micro mp3 player
• 1 GB Creative Zen Nano plus mp3 player
• 8 GB Creative Zen V plus mp3 player
• 30 GB Microsoft Zune (1st Gen with 2nd Gen firmware)

To state that, I should have found what I was looking for after owning these devices is really a optimistic statement. See, as time progresses, your music collection increases (I won't get into how would you procure it); and ur players falls short to hold it at one go.

I started off with the need to listen to mp3 alone with some use of the USB storage space resulting in the 5GB Zen micro. After 1 year to be exact, I found that I had run out of space for my collection,. US being such an electronics haven and that too when you get brilliant deals, causes an unending desire to own the latest and greatest and sometimes the slimmest !!

I settled for the 1 gb nano which I picked up for around $29 AR to use it occasionally. All was running fine till I got a $75 dollar coupon for Dell to spend with certain time; now this causes temptation and usually additional money too. So I picked up the 8gb Zen V plus with its photo/video and music playing capabilities. The size of this device is just fantastic, sometimes you forget that you are carrying it.

And finally what happens when you visit sites such as Woot. You end up spending more money and thats where I fell prey to the craze of $99 deal for the 30 GB Microsoft Zune. I ended up buying 5 of them for F & F.

Now isn't 30 GB enough !! Well, not exactly. My current collection of Music and Videos (mostly DivX and Xvid ) runs into 90 GB+ !! and Zune doesn't play Xvid out of the box. So my search continues and I run into something which has been making waves recently . . . . The Cowon Q5.

This PMP (Personal Media player) has specs which are out of the world, it plays most of the audio formats you can possibly have in your collection, it plays DivX and Xvid and currently the capacity tops out at 60 GB. Right now, I believe its a wait n watch time for me. Once it hits 160 GB or more, which I think would be by Apr-Jun 2k8. I should be checking out deals for it, or possibly befriend some in Korea to send me over and English version of this beauty.

This player comes with my favourite audio application - Jet Audio VX. I have used it since version 4.0 and to people who are used to it, wouldn't like to use any other app for their amateurish music needs. It has everything, ripping CDs, converting DVDs, cropping music, mixing, converting audio formats and streaming music over the net (I used to use it to broadcast music over my LAN).

So if you are in market for something of this calibre, I would suggest Zune for your normal music needs of more than ~30 GB or more. Its better than locking up your music inside the stupid iPod and iTunes.

or if you are stuck with ~100 gigs of stuff and don't like Archos / iPod Classic 160 GB, then wait till those 160GB HDDs from Toshiba start floating in other PMPs. Till then, do your homework, zero in product of your choice and click the mouse when you find the deal you can afford for.

If you need some advice, click the title link and land on the most possible review collections for DAP/PMP.