Media Players—iPod, Zune, SanDisk Sansa, iRiver clix

During 2006 major companies have tried to add media players to their product list, largely because of the tremendous success achieved by Apple’s iPods. Microsoft launched Zune that allows users to easily swap songs between devices, SanDisk has launched its SanDisk Sansa with the built-in digital FM tuner,with which you can preset 20 of your favorite radio stations, and iRiver has launched iRiver clix with a new ultra-intuitive interface which works with both subscription and pay-per-song music services. Host of other media players from companies like Creative Labs, PALM, Toshiba, Coby and others have been launched as well.
Apple’s iPod remains the market leader and is way ahead of its competitors but everybody is watching how Microsoft's Zune will takes a bit out of iPods market share.Though I believe there are other better products than Zune in the marketplace.
The first model of the Zune device comes equipped with a 30 GB hard drive, built-in FM tuner with Radio Data System, a three-inch screen, and Wi-Fi networking. In terms of audio formats, Zune supports MP3, WMA and AAC. Zune supports Microsoft's WMV movie format. Pre-loaded music, videos, and images ship with the device.

A key differentiator between Zune and the rest of the music players, including iPod, is Zune-to-Zune Wi-Fi communication. This allows limited sharing of songs, recordings, playlists and pictures with other Zune machines. Zune can connect to a Microsoft Xbox 360, giving users the ability to stream music, videos, and pictures via USB. Windows Mobile 5.0 based Zune Software can also stream music, videos, and pictures to Xbox 360 via a home network.


The device is available in three colors and features what Microsoft calls the “doubleshot” effect, with a translucent glow in a different color. The colors of mainstream availability are black, brown, and white with a double shot of blue, green and clear respectively.

More Info at:
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/ultra/clix/index.aspx
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Default.aspx?CatID=1073