People craving a mobile media fix have an incredible array of choices these days, both in terms of price and features. It's a great problem to have, but it means deciding which of the myriad players out there best meets their needs as we head into the holiday shopping frenzy.

Mobile players started out as music-only machines, but these days it's common to see even entry-level models sporting colour screens that can also store and play photo slideshows and videos.

iPod Touch These devices generally do a fine job of handling audio and video, offering good value for the money. But if your budget allows you to spend a little more despite these tough economic times, you can get players with extra features that deliver a really impressive bang for your buck.

Apple, whose iPod still enjoys a three-quarters market share, remains the dominant vendor of portable music and video players. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company recently refreshed its line with second-generation models of the iPod Touch and Shuffle, as well as the fourth-generation version of the svelte Nano.

The most desirable of these new players for media aficionados is undeniably the new Touch, which comes with an unparalleled feature set that allows users to not just play back various kinds of media, but also buy and download music, games and applications from Apple's online stores [assuming you're within range of a Wi-Fi internet connection].

While connected you can also surf the web, check e-mail and tune in to internet radio stations. And with plenty of handy everyday tools — including a contacts book, calculator, calendar and more — the Touch feels more like a chic little PDA [personal digital assistant] than a media player.

These trendy players start at $240 for an eight-gigabyte model and go up to $380 for the 32-gigabyte edition.

Zune

Zune Of course, those who eschew Apple's chic devices have plenty of alternatives these days. And while Apple is known for innovation and design chic, its competitors are providing some stiff competition when it comes to cool features.

First up, there's the Microsoft Zune lineup, which has been available in Canada now for about half a year.

The model Microsoft rolled out north of the border last spring was the second-generation Zune, but it's already been replaced by the third generation, which is nearly identical in look but adds more storage by way of a model with a 120-gigabyte hard disk. There are also a few new software features, including a clock, support for games and the ability to play audio books from sites such as audible.com and overdrive.com.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, licensing issues were still preventing Canadians from accessing Microsoft's online store, called Marketplace. That means you'll have to find music and videos elsewhere.

However, once the service comes available — Microsoft told us it will be "soon" — Canadian Zune owners will be able to download songs either on the PC or using the device's built-in Wi-Fi connection.

In the meantime, the Zune's biggest draw remains something Microsoft calls "Social," which lets users share their music with other Zune users nearby using a wireless network connection. Sadly, there are still so few people using Microsoft's player that your chances of randomly finding someone with a Zune nearby are pretty slim.

The 120-gigabyte Zune costs $250, while smaller-capacity, flash-based models start at $99 for the 4GB version. It's worth noting that owners of older Zune hardware can upgrade their firmware for free to take advantage of most of the new features rolled out in third generation players.

ZEN X-Fi

Zen X Fi Meanwhile, Creative Labs is offering an interesting new player called the ZEN X-Fi. The player is only about the size of a credit card and about half a centimetre thick, but it has a wealth of features.

One of the most interesting is built-in Wi-Fi wireless local area network functionality, along with streaming media technology. Install Creative's software on your home PC, and when you're in range of your wireless network you can play songs and videos directly from your PC hard drive through the player.

You can also use your home wireless network to download new music from various stores directly to the player. It's an undeniably handy feature for people who enjoy using media players in their basements and gardens, porches and patios, and who want all their stored media at their fingertips.

The only thing likely to disappoint is that the wireless network service doesn't extend beyond the home to Wi-Fi hot spots. In other words, the ZEN X-Fi is not set up to let you access files on your home network when you're away from home.

Ambitious users have found ways around this limitation, but Creative told us that it doesn't officially support or endorse any use of its device outside the parameters for which it was originally designed. In other words, if you want to hack it so that your X-Fi can get to files on your PC from anywhere on the internet, you're on your own if anything goes wrong.

That said, the X-Fi's streaming media capabilities brings into play a host of interesting possibilities. Should Creative [or any manufacturer, for that matter] eventually release a device designed to access your home-based collection of audio and video files from any Wi-Fi hot spot, the perpetual race to expand portable media player memory may suddenly become irrelevant.

The full-colour screen is sharp and vibrant, there's a built-in radio and an SD card slot to expand the memory, and the battery life is middle-of-the-road at about 30 hours for audio and three to five for video.

The caveat is that Creative has adopted an interface that can take some getting used to — a series of nine unlabelled buttons that do different things, depending on what menu you're looking at. It's an eye-catching control scheme, but it would have been nice to have some labels and a pair of dedicated buttons for volume that could be found more easily by feel.

One last feature of the ZEN X-Fi worth calling out is its superlative sound quality, which stems from a proprietary audio enhancement technology that Creative originally developed for its popular line of SoundBlaster PC sound cards.

The X-Fi's on-board sound processing technology restores many of the highs and lows typically lost in the digital compression process, producing richer sounding, CD-quality music — a plus for serious audiophiles. There's also a range of settings to tailor the sound output to your personal taste.

The 16-gigabyte model of the flash-based ZEN X-Fi is $200, while a 32-gigabyte version goes for $280. An eight-gigabyte edition without LAN [local area network] support sells for $150.

Of course, the offerings from Apple, Microsoft and Creative represent just the tip of the iceberg of personal media players. If wireless networking features aren't important to you, there are scores of models to choose from right now.

Here are a few more worth a look before making a final decision:

Sirius Stiletto 2 (2GB, $299)

Sirius Stiletto More a satellite radio than an MP3 player, the Stiletto 2 nonetheless offers a couple of gigabytes of flash memory [which can be expanded via a MicroSD card slot] to store your own MP3s.

The player also comes with built-in WiFi that allow listeners to access the Sirius satellite radio signal from any hot spot.

What's more, a track tagging function lets listeners easily purchase the songs they hear on radio from their choice of online stores. It's a money-maker for the company, but also a handy feature for music lovers.

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Sony NWZS736FB Walkman (4GB, $150)

Sony S Series (NWZS730) Sony's sparked the mobile music craze with its legendary Walkman, and the brand has evolved from FM radios, through tapes and CDs, to memory-based digital music. The most popular Walkmans in Sony's digitial media player lineup right now are in its S-Series.

The devices offer an amazing 40 hours of battery life for music playback. They come with 4 gigabytes of built-in memory.

The S-Series players ship with noise-cancelling earbuds — a rare in-box perk for a portable media player.

The S-Series Walkmans also have a feature called SensMe that automatically compiles playlists based on the characteristics of individual songs — it's similar to Apple's lauded Genius playlist generator.

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Samsung YP-P2 (8GB, $199)

Samsung YP P2 Samsung's latest edition of the touch-screen YP-P2 media player offers Bluetooth connectivity for cellphones and headsets, and for doing wireless file transfers with nearby desktop and laptop computers.

The YP-P2 has 8 gigabytes of built-in memory, so it has room for a substantial playlist of songs.

The player also comes with half a dozen games to help users kill time during commutes, something of a novelty among media players.

The YP-P2 also has a boatload of useful bonus features for work and play. There's a calculator, and a recording system for voice notes or capturing what's playing on the built-in FM radio.

The portable media player can even help you get where you're going in big cities. There are built-in maps of railway systems in major cities around the globe, including Toronto and Vancouver.

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SanDisk Sansa Fuze (4GB, $100), Sansa Clip (2GB, $70)

Sansa Fuze SanDisk's current roster of MP3 players includes a pair of direct iPod competitors.

One is the Sansa Fuze, which is about the same price and size as Apple's diminutive Nano player.

The other is the Sansa Clip, an alternative to the similarly priced iPod Shuffle.

Fashion mavens may not cue to these devices' slightly less elegant industrial designs and interfaces, but they offer some laudable perks, such as expandable memory, a built-in FM radio and recording functions.

The author is a freelance writer based in Toronto who specializes in technology.