iTouch or PSP?

I would say either ipod Touch or Cowon S9.

ipod touch 8Gig : around 12k
Sony MDREX35LP: 1.3k-1.5k (a must if you want to really enjoy audio quality)

or

Cowon S9 curve 16Gb: 14k-15.5k
Sony MDREX35LP: 1.3k-1.5k (a must if you want to really enjoy audio quality)

*www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/s9/

S9 easily beats ipod touch when it comes to audio quality, features and videoplayback formats.

ipod touch easily beats S9 when it comes to games and User Interface.

S9:

16million colors, 3.3" 16:9 Wide AMOLED, 480x272
Bluetooth ver. 2.0 + EDR with A2DP, support file transfer and bluetooth headphones
audio formats: MP3/2/1, WMA, FLAC, OGG, WAV, APE
video formats: Xvid SP/ASP, WMV9 SP/MP (480x272, 30 fps)
Audio presets and customizations: 30 Presets (26 Presets + 4 User presets), BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, 3D Surround, Stereo Enhance
Support built-in microphone recording and line-in recording
Battery: 55hr audio and 11hr video
Playsforsure support: Either drag-and-drop audio folders or use any windows based music file management client (winamp, WMP, mediamonkey, jetaudio) to transfer music.


ipod touch:

3.5" 480x320 high resolution touch screen
Audio formats supported: AAC, MP3, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
itunes app store
wifi
inbuilt browser
maps
H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second
need itunes for audio transfer.


When it comes to sheer audio quality, touch is nowhere near to S9 but if you need games as much as audio, go for ipod touch (thought I don't like to play games on music player ). Also, in S9, using JetEffect, you can set amount of bass, clarity, stereo effect that you want. If you feel that a song has too much bass, reduce the bass from the player's JetEffect's menu.

thanks for the info.. Cowon s9 looks gorgeous. Can PSP's audio video quality in any way match with any of these two?

^^yes. It's display is far better than these two. It has 4.3" 16M color 480 x 272 display. But it's a gaming device first and then a PMP.

You will find difficulty carrying it everywhere and also it has much lower audio format support. Not sure if it has podcast and audible playback.

Since gaming is your 2nd priority, you can concentrate on ipod Touch and S9. And here is format support on PSP:

[Video]: "UMD": H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main Profile Level3
[Video]: "Memory Stick": MPEG-4 SP,AAC
[Music]: "UMD": linear PCM,ATRAC3plus™
[Music]: "Memory Stick": ATRAC3plus™,MP3(MPEG1/2 Layer3)

Ok... I have Rokr e6.. so going for iTouch as it supports more apps wouldn't be a good idea... i think i'll shoot on cowon s9 4gb, but one thing which is pulling my leg is, i presume, iTouch has a better touchscreen... so....again, back to square one