MP3 and PVP picture quality: final grades

For a final assessment, the results were combined into an overall image and picture-quality rating by assigning each PVP a letter grade. The top honors go to the Archos AV500, which has the best all-around image and picture quality, so it earned the A. The Cowon A2 and the Creative Zen Vision:M also delivered excellent performance, and each was awarded an A–. The tiny Samsung YP-D1 delivered an impressive performance for its small size, but it received a B+ because its low-DPI screen produced grainy images; we eagerly await the return of a full-size player from Samsung. The Apple iPod lagged noticeably in image and picture quality across the board compared to the top players, so it received a B. Clearly, Apple isn't yet taking picture quality as seriously as it does audio quality. The problem is that the iPod needs a much better LCD panel--its image-processing electronics are actually better than those of the other players. The Creative Zen Vision had the highest resolution and DPI, as well as an excellent feature set and user interface, but its picture quality was weak (due to the very high-DPI LCD panel), so it received a C. Hopefully, Creative will provide this player with a larger version of the excellent LCD panel used in its Zen Vision:M.

So how good are these tiny screens? They are certainly very good, but in order to move up to excellent image and picture quality, their manufacturers will need to pay much more attention to the accuracy of the grayscale and give end users a few more display controls so that they can compensate for the tremendous range of viewing environments in which the players perform. To see how your own player performs (as well as your computer monitor and HDTV), see "Check the picture quality of your player."

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