Work While Drunk

The first thing I decided to do was tidy up my music collection. I deleted a lot of stuff I'm certain I will never listen to again, and put a chunk of it to one side that I need to have a good think about before deciding if I'm keeping it or not. I took my ~45Gb collection down to a little under 25Gb. I figure there's a few gigabytes that'll creep back in, but either way a 30Gb player is a good possibility, or a 40Gb one if I can afford it or the player comes in that size.

So next is the question of which player. I've been a keen follower of the DAP scene for years and over the last year or so it has exploded. However, not many of them have been exceptional. I don't just want an OK player, I want a good player. Plus there's a few features that I'm looking for. Namely I want it to be as small and light as possible, have good battery life, good sound (including a good equalizer) and have USB host functionality (to allow me to offload my camera's contents to the DAP). A colour screen is a plus, as is movie playback, but neither of them are requirements.

Undeniably the Apple iPod is the most famous player of the DAP revolution. However, it doesn't excel in any particular area - it wasn't anywhere near the first, its more expensive than most, the sound quality isn't fantastic, its veuy limited in terms of software and data formats, it has so-so battery life and I don't care for the Apple brand at all. Negativity aside, the advantages it has over other players are the sheer amount of accessories and good availability, plus its pretty much the smallest of its class. The iPod sets the baseline overall - and there's no getting away from the fact the often touted "iPod killer" crown has never been given to a DAP.

So, my next step is to gather up the intel on the devices that look like contenders for my cash. An inital sweep of sites like DAPReview.net shows up Creative's Zen:Vision, Toshiba's Gigabeat F and S series, Samsung's YH-J70 and iAuxio's X series. I can see already that each of these already has some pro's and con's over an iPod, so I'd be interested to see the spec's side by side. Stay tuned...