Stories by: Eric Dahl

SanDisk's networked wonder does a fine job of wedding Wi-Fi capabilities to a solid MP3 player.

Wireless syncing, good sound quality, and a nice touch control make this affordable player a good choice.

The digital music industry is headed for a crossroads, as more stores and record labels try out DRM-free music sales, and as some of the bigger names in digital music team up to offer a new service.

Is this the final stage of refinement for the hard-drive-based media player Apple now calls the iPod Classic? Judging by the tiny changes in this sixth generation, it very well could be. This latest update is all about capacity, with the 30GB model jumping to 80GB, and the flagship 80GB model leaping to a whopping 160GB.

Windows Mobile 6--Microsoft's generally modest update of its operating system for handheld devices and smart phones--will debut by midyear with enhancements for e-mail and editing of Office documents.

Microsoft's potential iPod assassin has already hit the shops in the US, but the timing of the Zune's appearance in Australia remains shrouded in mystery. So are we missing out on a gadget that's unmissable? Not exactly.

Microsoft's first portable MP3 and video player has finally arrived. The Zune goes on sale in the U.S. on Tuesday, and though I doubt many people are lining up PlayStation 3-style to get their hands on one, its slick interface and vaunted wireless song- and photo-sharing are sure to shake up the market.

Tests show that Intel's first quad-core chip, the 2.66-GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700, should bring impressive speed boosts to complex video-editing and 3D-rendering work. But while you might think that since two cores are good, four cores will be twice as good for all your computing tasks, our exclusive tests of the new chip tell a different story.

Refinement: that's what you get out of Apple's latest iPod, which comes with a brighter screen and an extra 20GB of storage. I tested the US$349 iPod--the 80GB flagship of the revamped line--and found a music player that's about as good as there is.

Say what you will about the patent dispute between Creative and Apple, both companies make some darned good MP3 players. Creative's latest effort--the Zen V line of flash-based player--is aimed right at Apple's popular iPod Nano line. And judging by the 2GB, US$170 Zen V Plus I tested, it offers some serious competition to the Nano.

The first benchmarks of Intel's quad-core Kentsfield processor are here, and the chip is showing some impressive speed in multithreaded applications. As with the Core 2 Duo launch, Intel supervised testing at its preview events this week, so we'll have to reserve our final take on performance until we can get a Kentsfield sample in our lab for testing with PC World's usual slate of benchmarks.