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C’mon baby light my fire

The P3 has an amazing interface – a very rich multimedia look, icons and background animations all in a device that is zippy. The rear is brushed aluminium although the look on the front is too plain to be termed as attractive. The styling is understated. The widget based home screen has lots going on, and can get crowded at times. Most people are going to go “WOW! – Widgets”, but I’m not a fan; matter of personal choice since it detracts from the actual purpose of a device, IMO. The touch-based controls work well, in fact, exceedingly well and the P3 comes closer to the interface of the iPod Touch than any other player we’ve tested to date. However, we feel Apple does it better as the menus and the touch system just somehow work well. Movies are a convenient drag-and-drop away and the screen is a joy to watch videos on, although it still trails the iPod Touch in terms of sheer quality.

Layla sounds very emotive and the guitar notes have textural warmth to them giving the entire track a very musical feel. There is also a noticeable mid-bass note that follows just after every drum beat, barely discernable but present and quite pleasing; though purists will yell ‘bass bloat’ while others (read bassheads) will rejoice. The same excess bass ruins No More Tears where even the opening guitar sounds overdone. The drum bass is tight but also overdone and one gets the feeling this player is aimed at the unashamed basshead. Some of the bass is enjoyable, some is not, but people liking neutrality this is not your PMP. The extra bass hits the spot with the track Where The Streets Have No Name, simply because the sibilance with Bono’s higher notes is less evident than with other PMPs – a classic example of different sound signatures suiting different genres of music. At Rs. 14,900 for the 16 GB version and the 8 GB version costing Rs. 11,900 the P3 is not as expensive as the iPod Touch, but then it’s not as good either.

Pros:

• Superb interface
• Good sound quality
• Great display
• Feature rich

Cons:

• Looks too plain
• Slightly costly

Click here for a list of all PMPs reviewed

	Apacer AU824
	Compact and affordable
	Apple iPod Classic
	Size matters
	Apple iPod Nano
	Diminutive powerhouse
	Cowon D2 Plus
	The chunky wonder
	Cowon iAudio 7
	Pocketful of sound
	Cowon S9
	Jack of all trades
	iPod Touch
	The apple of our eye
	Philips GoGear Aria
	No use hanging around this aria
	Philips GoGear Opus
	Not major league material
	Samsung YP-P3
	Oh boy! Was our reaction
	Samsung YP-Q2
	Affordable for sure, but we expected more