MP3 Player buying guide

What is an MP3 Player

An MP3 player is and electronic device designed specifically to store and play MP3 encoded audio files. An MP3 player lets a user carry thousands of songs in his pocket and create multiple personalized playlists for any occasion.

Types of MP3 Players

There are several types of MP3 players. The most common are flash players, hard drive players and multimedia players.

Flash Memory Players - These players can come with integrated memory or separate memory cards. These include a USB port. They are the smallest, lightest and cheapest type of players. They usually have between 64 MB and 1 GB of storage capacity and are designed for every day listening especially for use while participating in physical activities.

Hard Drive Players - These devices have between 2 GB and 80 GB of storage space and an internal hard drive. Most hard drive players have small screens to display play lists and feature navigation items. More expensive models have color screens and can display stored photographs. Some even allow downloading directly from digital camera cards to store pictures locally for displaying to friends.

Some of them include adapters that work with car radios and turn them into a truly portable juke box.

Multimedia Players - these devices are bigger and heavier and use larger hard drives than the standard MP3 player. They have a large color screen and are capable of video playback. This is a true pocket entertainment center because music, video and photographs are all available from a single portable device.

Features

Memory size - the amount of data they can hold can be anywhere from 128 MB to 40 GB.

Weight and size - they can weigh between one once to more than 16 ounces for the larger multimedia players. Some very basic players are the size of a pen drive while others are almost as large as a CD player. Most are about the size of a deck of playing cards.

Compatible audio formats - All of the players support the MP3 format. Some of the others can support one or all of these additional formats:

• WMA - Windows Media Audio
• WAV - Waveform Audio
• MIDI - Music Instrument Digital Interface.
• AAC - Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
• Ogg Vorbis - A free, open, and un-patented music format
• ADPCM - Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation
• ASF - Advanced Streaming Format
• VQF - Vector Quantization Format

PC Interface - The most common interface is the USB port. However some models have firewire or parallel ports as well.

Battery life - Batteries are usually integrated and non replaceable. The life ranges from several hours fro a multimedia player to up to 40 hours for some of the smaller players. Some models can be recharged through the USB port of your computer and don't require a separate charger.

Remote control - a nice feature especially for the larger MP3 players. The remotes can be anything from basic to a fancy one with an onboard LCD screen.

Other functions - MP3 players can also include: voice recorders, FM stereo tuners, Radio recorder, Sleep timer, Games, a Personal address book and file browsing capability.

Price Ranges

MP3 players can range in price from $25 to $800 depending on the features they have.

Most Popular

The most popular MP3 players are manufactured by Creative Labs, Apple (iPod), Samsung, iRiver, Sony and Philips