30 Jan 09 DAPreview’s Top 5 DAP’s of 2008

Despite being a month into 2009, all we want to talk about is 2008 right now. Well, the Best DAP's of 2008 that is. For those that participated in our voting over the last few weeks, the Top 5 players shouldn't come as a surprise to you. To refresh everyone's memory, each player selected was the winner from one of five categories - Simple, Mid-range, High-end flash, HDD, and PMP. Here are the winners:

Sandisk Sansa Clip (Simple category winner) - This player has been one of the most popular DAP's to date and for good reason. It might be one of the smallest players available today, but it packs a mighty punch in the sound department. Sandisk released a 4 and 8GB model in 2008, as well as a new silver color.

Sony A820 Series (Mid-range winner)- Sony already won us over in 2007 with the S610/S710 series, and they continued that tradition in 2008 with the A820 series. It tackled nearly every fault I listed in my S615 review, including a larger screen, and higher capacities.

Samsung P2 (High-end Flash winner)- The P2 is a bit of an oldie, but it is still one of the best touchscreen players available today. Last year, Samsunng released their BlueWave Firmware which significantly improved the player and its interface. In 2009, you can expect the P3 to pick up right where the P2 left off, and then some.

Microsoft Zune 120 (HDD category winner) - The HDD category only had one other nominee, the iPod classic. The Zune won in a landslide due to its larger screen, sexier design, and superior interface (among other things).

Archos 5 (PMP category winner) - The winner of this category claims to be an Internet Media Tablet, go figure. Despite Archos' new label for the Archos 5 and 7, they're definitely PMP's in my book. They look pretty sexy too, compared to most other PMP's in the market.

The best part about this list is that it was chosen by all of you. In past years the list was compiled by just the staff members here, but I think it's better to get the community involved.. I want to thank everyone who has participated and I hope most are pleased with the final results. Now our final poll is more for fun than anything. You have the opportunity to select the Best DAP from the 5 listed. It's not exactly a balanced poll pitting the tiny Sansa clip against a huge PMP, but I do believe every player listed has their strengths over the other.

So locate our poll on the right side of the front page and cast your vote. The poll will be open for one week this time, after which I'll announce the Best DAP of 2008.

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