Alright folks, we're moving on to our next category in our Best DAP of 2008 voting. This one is as simple as it gets. It's the HDD DAP category and there are only two candidates, the 120GB iPod Classic and Zune 120. The two players have faced off countless times all over the net, but taking ourselves too seriously, we have claimed this to be the decisive battle. Just find our poll on the lower right side of the main page and you can help us make history.



Voting ends in three days, after which we'll be start our fifth and final category: PMP's.

Although the iTunes Music store supplies 10 million tracks, starting today 8 million of them will be free of the shackles of DRM (digital rights management) with the other 2 million hoped to be free of DRM by the end of this quarter. While I do not use the iTMS this is certainly a step in the right direction in providing a more open audio format and as a result the iTMS can be used with more DAP's/PMP's than the iPod alone.

In the past most of the tracks sold on itunes where locked down by the fairplay DRM technology, this meant that any track bought through the iTMS could only be played on your itunes and your ipod, but not on any other media player or DAP/PMP.

As it stands today most of the top DAP's and PMP's support the AAC codec (this is the format the itunes store sells) meaning there should be little issue in plonking DRM free itunes tracks on to your player. Next step> Lossless itunes music store

I've seen some some sadistic gadget abuse before, but this video pained me to watch. Why would anyone attempt to harm a brand new Cowon S9? I can't even afford to buy one, and this guy is stabbing his with a knife! Check out how the S9's screen faired against coins, forks, knives, and whatever else this maniac had on hand:




Impressed? I know I am. Not only is the S9 a stylish device, but this video proves it's also very durable (well, the screen at least). The more I hear about the S9, the more I love it.

This video was sponsored by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Audio Players. PETAP would like to remind you to take good care of your DAP's. Feed it good songs, use quality headphones, and dress it in a nice case to make it happy!

Cowon S9 at Amazon

Like many of the people here, I signed up at DAPreview because I was looking to buy a new MP3 player. There was no other source quite like it for getting news and reviews of all the latest players. Eventually I found myself coming back everyday to help others with their buying decision, and to debate about what player was the best. This growing passion eventually led me to an invitation to join the staff and become an editor at epiZENter.net. Being the happy owner a Creative Zen Vision:M, I was honored by the opportunity to write for the newly created Creative fansite.

At that time, DAPreview had six editors who were keeping this place nice and active. Most notably of course were the founders Austin Vaughan and Robert Sinke. For various reasons, just about every one of them started losing interest in the DAP industry, and as a result this site started to suffer. Those were dark days for us, but I decided I'd take things into my own hand at get permission to start writing here as well.

I only volunteered on a temporary basis, but here I am nearly three years later. I've learned a lot since then, about the industry and about myself. As an editor I was limited in what changes I could make to the site. And believe me, there were plenty of things I wanted to see changed. Today, I can announce that I am now the owner of DAPreview and epiZENter.

Owning a site like this is a big responsibility, but I am confident that I'll handle the task properly. So what can you expect from this? Well first and foremost we have to start doing more reviews. We're a site called DAPreview and we don't have much to show for that lately. Secondly, in these changing times we have to adopt to the industry and not set our focus so narrowly. DAPreview will slowly expand to other gadgets such as netbooks, stereos, headphones, and other outlets of digital audio. Third, I feel this place needs a serious makeover.

With thoughts a redesign in mind, I decided to recruit one of the best up and coming designers I know. It is my pleasure to announce Design Fabulous as the newest member of our staff. He will not only help us with redesigning the site, but he'll also be writing for us as well. Design is usually one of the first to inform us about DAP news from Korea, so he'll be a valuable asset in getting that information to the public. He is also a quite skilled photographer, and has a passion for DAP's. Those two things are going to be highlighted in his featured reviews. For his first review, he will be taking on the newly released Cowon S9. I know many of you are just as excited as I am to see his work.

We have a large hill to climb to get back to the site we used to be. It won't be easy, but I promise everyone that I'll devote myself fully to improving this site as its owner. I want to take this time to thank all the readers of this site. Whether you're a veteran, or this is your first visit to us, you can count on us for the best coverage of DAP news and reviews.

As if knowing no one would care about them, iriver made no commotion about their two "newest" players, the T5 and T6. I never got that to be honest. What's the point of investing any money on a player if you're not going to make people aware of it? Hell, even Creative (i.e. the King of overlap) would announce something lie the Muvo Chameleon like it was best thing since sliced bread, and that player was like the 20th reiteration of a player that already exists! But hey what do I know? I don't have a business degree like all those fine folks over at Reigncom. Perhaps the whole underground approach will pay off for them and the T5 and T6 will become sensations; OR they've already been forgotten about and I'm just painfully reminding you all of their existence.

Our friend Jenn, over at Pocketables.net was willing to do the dirty job of reviewing these two players. Surprisingly they're not as bad as they look. Sure there's nothing really special about them, but they're built well, sound decent and are fairly inexpensive. Here's a snippet from each review's conclusion:

iriver T5





iriver T6





iriver T5 review
iriver T6 review

You can find these players, and plenty others from overseas at Warehouse123.com. They're also available at iriver America

Thanks enigman

Continuing with our our quest to find the Best DAP of 2008, we arrive at the High-end flash category. This is the future of the industry right here folks. It's where you'll find the most lavish of players, often with a dazzling touchscreen interface, a large display ranging from 3.0" - 3.4", and a greater focus on video and other forms of media. And of course as a byproduct of all of that, they're usually pretty expensive as well. So here are our Top 3 choices of High-end players released in 2008 or players like the P2 that was released in 2007 but got a significant firmware upgrade this year (i.e. Blue Wave firmware)



Apple iPod touch 16 GB (2nd Generation)
iriver Spinn
Samsung P2

You can find our polls on the lower right side of the page. Voting ends in three days, and then we'll move to our HDD showdown between the iPod Classic and Zune 80.

Note: As mentioned prior, we are going to save the Cowon S9 till next year. It'll then be facing off against the Samsung P3, Sony Walkman touch, and who knows what else.

Meizu is taking 2009 seriously. They kicked off the year by opening their first retail shop in Shenzhen, China. The store features all of their players, but most people came to see their first glimpses of the Meizu M8. They drew a very nice crowd from the looks of it:





Maybe I'm stretching a bit, but even their store has an Apple-esque feel to it. It's nice to see such a turnout for Meizu. The M8 might just be a hit when it's released over there, whenever that is.

More photos from the Grand opening can be found Here.

via MeizuMe

That's right, and I'm not kidding, it does indeed seem that Zune30's all over the place are committing mass suicide. At first I thought this was a hoax, a big ugly hoax, but that no longer seems to be the case.

Many members of popular Zune fansite Zuneboards.com are posting comments depicting how their Zune 30's are just dying all of a sudden. One zuneboards member named Arcon-Death writes:

It would appear he is not alone, as there are 34 pages (at this moment in time) of similar comments in this massive thread.

At first I shrugged this little issue off as a few people overreacting, but now I actually find myself believing that their may very well be an issue here...I guess the hoards of posts and reports may have something to do with my change of heart. I would want to hope that Microsoft can sort this mess out, but this really will not do their reputation any favours.

Now, any Zune30 owners here? please, speak up! The theory is that this sudden death issue was introduced in the latest firmware update, so if you haven't updated you could be safe, but that's just a theory. It'll be a fun ride while we watch and learn how this one plays out.

Update: Apparently it has something to do with the Zune's internal clock or something. It's like the Y2K bug! (Begin panic mode now). It's clear Microsoft has problems with setting a clock. Anyway here's a workaround that was posted in the comments section:


Update2: [Linky]



Update3: Zunes are working again!

Thanks Ricardo Dawkins

Okay so we messed up a wee bit with our Best DAP of 2008: Mid-range category. Upon request we added the Sony A820 series to the poll. That was 14 hours after it started however, and it was already at a disadvantage to the other players; including the Sony S730 series which ended up winning the category. Despite being a later addition the A820 got nearly as much as the winner, so to be fair we're having a run-off between the top 3 players in the category:



Sansa Fuze
Sony S730/S630/E430 series
Sony A820 series

You'll have another three days to vote, but hopefully this time we'll have an outright winner to compete in the finals. We want to apologize for this slight delay, but we want to ensure our final selection of players were selected without any doubts in our minds. Thanks for participating in our voting!

VOTE

If the system shows you already voted (possible bug), leave a comment in the Poll section!

Slacker radio might not be for everyone, but I found it to be one of the best ways to discover new music. Woot.com has the 1st gen Slacker Portable radio for just $69.99 plus 5.00 shipping. That's for the 8GB model, which wll hold 40 radio stations, as well as your own music.

Features:

• Capacity: 8GB (40 Station capacity)
• Display: 4.0" TFT (480 x 272 resolution)
• Audio: MP3, and WMA
• Built-in WiFi allows you to connect to Slacker on the go and even play stations offline
• Battery Life: 10 hours
• Dimensions: 70mm x 16.5mm x 109mm

The Slacker portable comes with a free basic service to Slacker radio. It allows you to skip songs up to six times an hour, and will play 1-2 commercials per hour. The premium service costs $7.50 per month (or $3.99 a month if you pay for the whole year). That gives you the ability to skip as many songs as you want, play any song on demand, eliminates commercials and allows you to save songs to your player. The player comes with a USB cable, and a nice carrying case. If you want to try something different, the Slacker portable looks like the best change of pace for the price.

Woot!
Slacker.com

Thanks DaHarder