It's simply not enough to offer just mp3 playback in a gadget any more. Mp3 playback is – if you’ll pardon the pun - played out; you can get mp3- capable flash drives, mp3-capable mobile phones, and we’re willing to bet that the days of mp3-capable breakfast cereal aren’t too far off either. We’ve taken a look at eight different mp3 players that go beyond the simple music motif, with a special eye on video capabilities. Video has long been the holy grail of portable devices; while it’s nice to sit on the bus and listen to your favourite music (as long as you’re not annoying others), it’s truly captivating to be able to watch something while you wait for your stop. Portable media players basically come in two varieties, distinguished by how they store their media. It is still possible to get CD-based devices that will read mp3 files, but they’re a small and limited niche; these days the market is dominated by units that use either solid-state flash memory, or tiny hard drives of the same type found in laptop computers. The flash models have the advantage of ruggedness – because they’ve got very few moving parts – but they have a smaller capacity than their hard drive cousins and are much more expensive for the amount of storage they offer. Hard drive units do have moving parts, so they usually draw a little more power (which can translate into less battery life), but they can store thousands of songs and hours and hours of video.

IPOD VIDEO
Site: www.apple.co.nz
APPLE’S flagship iPod products come with hard drives and the capability for video playback, although radio is still curiously absent. What’s also missing is the ability to convert video from within iTunes – a very annoying omission, as you’ll have to locate conversion software yourself. Battery life when playing back video isn’t all that stellar either. Still, the iPod remains iconic for its ease of use, and that hasn’t changed. Neither has its cool appeal, even though this particular model hasn’t had a genuine model upgrade (excluding storage capacity) for a number of years. The next upgrade, the iPhone, doesn’t even have a New Zealand release date yet.
Pros: Still the easiest player to use we’ve ever seen. iTunes compatible, naturally.
Cons: No video conversion software included.
Verdict: The iPod still remains the player to beat, even if Apple is treading water right now.

SONY PSP
Site: www.sony.co.nz
SONY had exceptionally high hopes when it launched the PlayStation Portable two years ago; it was going to be the games, music and video machine of the next generation. Things haven’t quite worked out that way – the proprietary UMD media format turned out to be quite a dud, for a start – but as a portable entertainment device the PSP is still pretty good value. That’s largely down to the gorgeous widescreen LCD, which makes viewing video on the move a truly enjoyable experience. That’s once you’ve tracked down suitable software – Sony will sell you PSP video conversion software, but none is supplied – along with a Memory Stick Pro Duo to store your video. As a music player, the PSP is best described as “rudimentary” – and that’s being rather kind.
Pros: Widescreen video viewing; good variety of available games.
Cons: No supplied video conversion software. Poor mp3 player. UMD videos poor value.
Verdict: A good choice for gamers or those who like bigger screens.

SONY NW-A806
Site: www.sony.co.nz
SONY’S NW-A806 comes with only 4G of storage, and competes directly – and rather well – with Apple’s iPod Nano. We loved the video and audio quality of this slender unit, along with the mobilephone- like icon menu system. Still, at $330 it is a pricey option – the 8G variant is $400 and 2G is $260 - and compared to something like iTunes, the included SonicStage software is unfriendly to both novices and even those who know what they’re doing. The use of a custom USB connector for charging and synchronising also irks us, as it’ll make the unit a brick if you lose the cable.
Pros: Good video quality. Good battery life. Comes with video and photo conversion software.
Cons: Software is unfriendly to use. It uses a custom USB connector. Comparatively expensive.
Verdict: A very nice player, albeit an expensive one.

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT V30
Site: www.gigabeat.com.au
TOSHIBA’S Gigabeat V30 wins our award for the weirdest-shaped portable entertainment device. From the front, it looks like a largish player – slightly bigger than most pants pockets – but the back has an odd contoured lump that may sit poorly with you. The media centre interface of the V30 is a pleasure to use; it’s a mimic of the larger Microsoft Media Center interface that entertainment PCs use. The screen is good to look at for extended video watching (albeit not quite as nice as the PSP’s), but we disliked the fact that the V30 will only charge direct from the mains, even though it has a USB port for data transfers. Those with larger fingers may also find the embedded joystick a little hard to manipulate when making menu selections.
Pros: Large display screen, simple media centre interface.
Cons: Doesn’t charge via USB, joystick is a touch fiddly.
Verdict: A great choice for those with media centre PCs.

CREATIVE ZEN V PLUS
Site: www.creative.com
THE smallest (and cheapest) video-capable mp3 device in our roundup is Creative’s tiny Zen V Plus, a player with a striking visual style - our review sample came in orange-on-black. The small size is a blessing when it comes to carrying it around, but something of a burden in use. The controls are very small and all clustered on the lower right-hand side of the player, with plenty of wasted space making it all the more annoying. Predictably, the tiny screen doesn’t make for the best watching experience. It uses flash-based memory, which would make it a good match for active types such as gym junkies, as long as they had tiny fingers.
Pros: Tiny size, good battery life, video conversion software is supplied.
Cons: Screen is very small, as are the controls.
Verdict: You get what you pay for – the Zen V Plus is an inexpensive option, but definitely not for those with chubby digits.

CREATIVE ZEN VISION M
Site: www.creative.com
CREATIVE is to be applauded for doing something other than just ape the prevailing iPod style, but sometimes moving away from the norm can have its drawbacks. In many aspects, the Vision M is a superb player; it has good battery life, an excellent screen and support for a raft of file formats, meaning that many files will play back with no need for conversion at all. Unlike the Zen V Plus, all of the space under the screen is used for buttons, which helps with navigation, but it’s also where the Vision M suffers its biggest drawback: a touchsensitive ‘stripe’ used for scrolling and selecting.
Put simply, it’s too sensitive by half; we spent most of our test time having to cancel errant selections (when trying to scroll) or scrolling when trying to select. It’s a huge pity, as otherwise this is a superb portable entertainment machine.
Pros: Good screen.
Cons: Control interface is tricky.
Verdict: A great player on paper, but be prepared to get frustrated with the controls.

SANDISK SANSA E280
Site: www.sandisk.com
SANDISK’S Sansa e280 takes on Apple’s iPod Nano with a virtually identical kind of shape and even the use of a scroll wheel for menu selections – although in the e280’s case it’s an actual wheel, rather than a circular touchpad. It’s also unique in the portable media flash memory space in that it can be expanded; it’ll take MicroSD cards up to a hefty 10G capacity. It is let down by an average video screen (the one on the Sony NW-A806 is much better), a scroll wheel that can sometimes be a bit brutal on the fingers and the use of a custom USB connector. Lose that, and your Sansa becomes not much more than a paperweight.
Pros: Memory can be upgraded. Great battery life.
Cons: Scroll wheel is chunky. Custom USB connector.
Verdict: A good-value competitor to the Nano and

CREATIVE ZEN VISION W
Site: www.creative.com
THE most expensive player in our roundup is Creative’s Zen Vision W. It’s basically the Vision M on steroids; 60G of storage, a widescreen 4.3-inch TFT display and a control scheme that’s much easier to get to grips with than the M’s. The Vision W is obviously on the larger side, which makes it unsuitable for straight pocket usage. However, this is probably due to the valuable extras it boasts, including small built-in speakers, an FM radio player and the ability to record conversations. The only real drawback for this very capable entertainment machine is the asking price.
Pros: Gorgeous widescreen display. Supports lots of video types.
Cons: Bulky and expensive.
Verdict: A great player with a chunky price tag.

BEST IN TEST APPLE IPOD
Highly commended: Sandisk Sansa e280, Sony PSP APPLE’S iPod still remains the most user-friendly portable entertainment option out there, although Apple could do its customers some favours by making it easier to convert video from within iTunes. However, it’s not a bulletproof brand – Sandisk’s excellent Sansa e280 is a better and more capable overall player than the equivalent iPod Nano, and Sony’s PSP still wows us with its quality screen every time we power it up.

FILE FORMATS
Mp3 remains the most well-known of the portable music formats, with AAC arguably the second-most popular, essentially because it’s the format that Apple’s iTunes store uses for the music tracks it sells. However in video terms, things get much murkier. Most players will advertise compatibility with mp4 video, but that incorporates a whole mess of standards, differing codecs and compatibility issues. It gets even more complicated when you realise that there’s no ‘standard’ for portable video screen resolutions, and as such a file that may play on one player might be incompatible with the screen of another. Largely, your best bet at getting video onto a given player is to use the vendor-supplied software (if it exists) to convert video and transfer it to your player.

THE IPOD PHENOMENON
IT’S impossible to write about portable entertainment devices without mentioning Apple’s phenomenally successful iPod brand. Indeed, for many people, any portable media player is an iPod, whether it actually is or not. Apple has engineered its market dominance partly through having a very good device that is very easy to use, along with lots of marketing to back it up. Such is the iPod’s control of the overall market that virtually all accessories for portable players are built to be iPod-compatible. The one benefit here for owners of other devices is that, at least in the case of audio accessories, they should work with anything that hosts a standard audio jack. Power accessories and docks are naturally enough excluded, unless they’re just using standard USB connections, which should work with any standard USB-powered player.