Market Watch: Portable Media Players

Portable Media Players have always gone through a lot of price variations. There are times when that PMP you were looking for a few weeks ago turns up about Rs. 2,000 cheaper. This small write-up will help you keep updated with prices for PMPs.

While the prices mentioned here are from the gray market as well as standard electronics stores, some dealer around your house might have something more to offer. Always cross check and see whether you get what you pay for.

PMPs come at different price ranges and one of the most important aspects is that you narrow down to a PMP according to how much you want to invest in it. We’ll see a list of products starting off with the expensive ones and later moving on to cheaper players.

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The iPod Touch has been a favorite PMP for many, especially with their extra features of Wi-Fi and some great games on the App Store. These are the prices of the PMPs in the grey market.

A tad expensive

Apple iPod Touch Third Generation 8 GB – Rs. 10,000

Apple iPod Touch Third Generation 32 GB – Rs. 13,500

Apple iPod Touch Third Generation 64 GB - Rs. 18,000

Apple iPod Touch Fourth Generation 8 GB - Rs. 11,500

Apple iPod Touch Fourth Generation 32 GB - Rs. 14,900

Cowon is one brand which we couldn't find at all, even though we looked high and low. Nevertheless, these prices are listed from their Indian website:

J3, not readily available

Cowon J3 4 GB – Rs. 9,999

Cowon J3 8 GB – Rs. 12,000

Cowon J3 16 GB – Rs. 14,000

Cowon J3 32 GB – Rs. 17,000

Cowon S9 4 GB – Rs. 7,999

Cowon S9 8 GB – Rs. 9,999

Cowon S9 16 GB – Rs. 11,999

Cowon V5 16 GB – Rs. 15,000

Cowon V5 32 GB – Rs. 17,500

Now only if they also provided addresses of different retailers who sell Cowon products.

Sony’s Walkman NWZ-A845 was an amazing buy without a doubt. Sadly, it’s not been a popular product and we could find it in only one shop.

Walk with your music

Sony Walkman NWZ-A845 8 GB – Rs. 8,250

Sony Walkman NWZ-A845 16 GB – Rs. 11,000

Sony Walkman NWZ-E443 4 GB – Rs. 4,950

Cam-ing atcha!

Philips saw a healthy flow of products going out, also there were quite a variety of products on display.

Philips GoGear Cam 8 GB – Rs. 7,900

Philips GoGear Aria 4 GB – Rs. 4,600

Philips GoGear Vibe 4 GB – Rs. 3,650

Philips GoGear Vibe 2 GB – Rs. 3,200

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Creative had two players on display and that too after a lot of searching, which means the product was either flying off the shelves, or was not selling well. This looked a bit surprising because these players definitely look like a steal at that price!

Mozaic way of living

Creative Zen Mozaic 2 GB – Rs. 2,900

Creative Zen X-Fi Style 8 GB – Rs. 5,500

After listing all of these, we found something interesting. It looked like Transcend was the only brand that most retailers have heard of. Either that or they are considered value-for-money by a lot of people. We’ll leave that up to you, but we can still list the prices we got.

MP850: Low cost and performs well

Transcend MP860 4 GB – Rs. 2,800

Transcend MP850 4 GB – Rs. 2,600

Transcend MP850 8 GB – Rs. 3,200

We also asked for prices on different headphones and earphones. The variety on this product was quite large and earphones were easily available.

Sennheiser cx 300-II – Rs. 2,475

Sennheiser cx 200 – Rs. 250

Creative ep 630 – Rs. 750

Creative ep 830 – Rs. 750

Philips SHE9500 – Rs. 900

Philips SHS3200 – Rs. 400

Sony MDR G451P Headphones – Rs. 850

Panasonic RP HV21 – Rs. 430

Although the list of earphones and headphones is not very big, we picked them as we saw them. In case you feel there’s something that should be included in the list of PMP players, please let us know about it.