Undoubtedly the hottest gadgets this holiday season will be MP3 players. Today’s GadgetCore Holiday Gift Guide covers the “Big Ticket” MP3 players from Apple and Microsoft.

Starting off the list is the recently announced Apple iPod Touch. The iPod Touch removes some of the phone features from the iPhone but keeps the touch interface. The iPod touch also browses the internet and views YouTube videos, and has a built in Wi-Fi iTunes Store. For those not wanting a phone, or not wanting to pay for AT&T service, the iPod Touch is a great option.
GC rating: 4/5. While the Touch has a great looking interface and cool feature set, the measly 8 or 16GB of space make it unrealistic for those with large music and video collections. It is also not expandable, SD or other flash memory cards cannot be used.

Next up is Apple’s other major MP3 player: the iPod Classic. The iPod Classic is similar to the iPod video before it, but has a new interface and an increased storage capacity, at 80 or 160GB.
GC rating: 4/5. While the iPod Classic has an excellent storage capacity, it is lacking in extra features such as Wi-Fi. The new half-menu interface is love it or hate it, some people will like it while others will not.
The iPod Classic also recieves the GadgetCore Choice award for best hard-drive MP3 player.

On the other side of the fight, Microsoft’s Zune 4 and 8 are flash memory based versions of the latest Microsoft Zune. They both support video as well as play music. They also have an FM radio tuner and built-in Wi-Fi based syncing, something that Apple’s products lack. A built in podcast player is included as well.
GC rating: 4/5. The Zune 8, along with the smaller Zune 4, are a strong players in the MP3 player area, however the storage capacity is too small for those with large music and video collections, and neither is expandable with external storage.

In the next two days, look forward to the Offbrand MP3 Players: Reviews of players from ARCHOS, Creative, COWON, SanDisk, and iRiver. Tomorrow we will review Video Offbrands, followed by Non-Video Offbrands on Tuesday.

Images courtesy of Apple and Microsoft.

Filed under: Holiday Gift Guide | written by Sam