There have been a number of mp3 players to hit the market that were all marketed as “iPod Killers” when they were in the development and marketing phases; and sadly most of them never make the splash that the manufacturer intended, and many of them quietly slip off the market and back into the labs and warehouse corners of the manufacturer, forever doomed to be prize giveaways, holiday freebies, or shipped overseas.

There are a number of really good and solid mp3 players on the market today that aren’t iPods, but none of these are really members of that club. Even the venerable Microsoft Zune was labeled an iPod Killer, and while it’s certainly nothing of the sort, it’s the closest device on the market to put up some serious competition. The Zune isn’t in this list because it’s neither dead or dying, but there are some other notable devices that are – like the Zune’s big brother, the Toshiba Gigabeat, and the above pictured Dell DJ. Check out the whole list below:

[ Wired :: iFraud: The Best in Dead and Dying iPod Killers ]