Wow, we have spent a lot of time here, going through the highs and lows of these six media players.  For those of you just joining us, go back and reread the whole Listen To This Series.  we have compared every aspect of six media players, including the hardware, accessories, controls, menus, syncing, sound, video, photos, battery, memory, wireless connections, and pretty much anything else which could be compared.  Now that all of that comparison is done, the only question remaining is what came out on top.  well, hit the jump to see where I landed on this one.

This is really a difficult question, because none of these offered what I would call the complete package.  But while we are talking about the package, man was the body on the iPod Nano nice.  No seams and no screws, just a thing of beauty.

It could have used a larger screen, like that on the Sony Walkman, or even the Sansa View, but really the small differences in screen size, as we will see, are not terribly relevant.

I was not as wild, however, about the controls on the iPod.  This was really a personal taste kind of thing, but I have never been an iPod scroll wheel kind of person.  I did love the touchpad on the Zune (above), which was both cool and a bit dangerous (make sure you use that hold button).  At the same time, though, I was intrigued by the touch screen on the Samsung, and I am eagerly anticipating some new touch screen media players coming soon (including the Sony X series).

I also looked at the battery and memory.  Memory is really not all that important if you have an external memory card.  Unfortunately, few of these players utilized external memory cards.  The Creative Zen X-fi relied on the older, but still adequate, SD card.  The Sansa View utilizes the more modern microSD card.  But really, either was adequate.  What made the Sansa View stand out, however, was the fact that it could combine the internal memory and external card into a single library.

Slightly more important is the battery on your device.   This is critical if you listen to your music (or watch video) for any significant period of time.  Some of these players offered nothing but disappointment with the battery life, but the Zune and Sony really shone, offering approximately 12 hours of continuous playback each.

That brings us to media: music, video, and photos.  I spent a lot of time watching and listening to these players.  And the truth is, I would not recommend any of the six for video or photos.  The screen is simply too small to make it reasonably enjoyable.   If you want to watch video, I suggest you check out the iPod Touch (above), or wait for the rumored Zune HD coming soon.

Listening to Music, on the other hand, was a completely different story.  And, frankly, I was pretty surprised by what I found here.  The first thing I found was that there was a clear division between the players, with the Sony, Zune, and iPod coming out with significantly better sound quality than the Sansa, Samsung, and Creative.

That being said, I was surprised to find that the iPod did not come out on top.  It was third, and it was not even close.  After I finished my testing, however, I learned the reason for this problem.  Apparently, Apple uses two different audio chips in its iPods.  The new Nano 4G incorporates the lesser of these chips.  Had I known this, I might have opted to seek out an iPod Video with the far superior sound chip.   But, the Nano, with its inferior chip, could not hold a candle to the Zune and Sony.

Between the two, I have to say, though, that the Sony Walkman offered the best options for accessing your music, with outstanding search and shuffle options (including the time machine search, above left) and easy to navigate menus.

Finally, and probably least important are the wireless capabilities.  Two of the players (Sony and Samsung) offered Bluetooth capabilities.  This was pretty nice.  I am a big fan of the potential of Bluetooth.  The problem is that I do not believed headphone manufacturers have ever truly taken Bluetooth seriously.  That means no matter how good your Bluetooth headphones are, they will – by definition – never come close to your higher end wired headphones.

Likewise, the Zune also offers wireless connections via wi-fi.  To be fair, the Creative Zen offered this as well in certain models, but I did not have that feature included in mine.  To be honest, though, this is not a feature which would ever make or break my decision to buy a media player.  Yes, it was fun to play with.  And although I would not expect to connect to another person’s player to share music, I did enjoy wireless syncing and purchasing music directly from my device.

So, there you have it.  In the end, I liked a little of this and a little of that.  Unfortunately, the last time I checked, you could not walk into Best Buy and assemble your own media player from components of several different players.  So, what you really want to know is, what should you say when you walk into Best Buy.

Like I said, I spent a lot of time with each of these.  Some lasted longer than others.  Before long, I found myself relying on the iPod, Zune, and Sony more than any others.  In the end, I found no matter which of the others I was using at any time, my mind kept wandering back to the Zune.  When I was done testing, I immediately made that my full time player.

Sure, the Zune is pretty nondescript…some might even call it ugly.  But there were two things about it I really liked, which made all the difference.  First, as I mentioned, I just love the touch pad controls.  They are creative and work great.  It isn’t a touch screen, but we should be seeing that soon enough.  Second, the sound quality was just second to none.  My music sounded insane piping out of the Zune.  Which is why I think it is unfortunate that Zune has not been able to get a better foothold in the market.

That will wrap up this series.  I had a great time writing it, and I really hope you all enjoyed reading it as well.  Stay tuned, though, because we have plenty more great media player reviews coming soon, including the Sony X-series, as well as (hopefully) the Zune HD.  And you had better believe that someone on the team will have the new iPod Touch 3 when it comes out.  Heck, we are starting to get pretty close to featuring a whole second series.

Where to find the media players featured in this series

Microsoft Zune

Sony Walkman Video (discontinued during the course of this series)

Apple iPod Nano 4G

Sandisk Sansa View

Samsung YP-P2

Creative Zen X-fi