By
eHow Electronics Editor
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Step1
Shop for price. MP3 players range from $60 for a bare-bones RCA Lyra to $500 for the top-of-the-line Apple iPod. Other popular brands are Creative Labs, SonicBlue, Archos, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic.
Step2
Get a player with as much storage as you can afford. The more storage, the more music it can hold. One minute of MP3 music takes up about 1 megabyte (MB) of memory, so a 128 MB MP3 player can hold about two hours of tunes. Unlike computers, memory and storage are sometimes used synonymously in MP3 players, since the storage in smaller devices (under 128 MB) is usually made of Flash memory chips.
Step3
Make sure any potential purchase works with your computer. Many MP3 players don't work with Macintosh computers, though that's improving.
Step4
Try the controls. Less-expensive players often have control panels that can charitably be described as "minimalist." Make sure they make sense to you.
Step5
Pick up the unit to gauge its size and weight. Would it be comfortable in your pocket or on your belt? How about when you're moving around?
Step6
Check out the player's advertised battery life. Manufacturers' claims aren't exact, but they can be used for comparison.
Step7
Choose a unit with USB or FireWire, rather than a parallel connection to your computer. USB and FireWire are fast and flexible.
Step8
Look for a player with an FM radio receiver. Some models can record music from the radio, and will identify the artist and title the next time you connect the player to your computer. Some also double as digital voice recorders.
Step9
Look for expandable storage, especially on units without much built-in memory. CompactFlash, MemoryStick and SecureDigital media are common choices. Newer models with more storage have internal hard disks that can store computer data.
Step10
Have a listen. MP3 players use standard stereo headphones. If you don't like the headphones that come with a player, there are a variety of styles you can purchase.
Comments
Brawler said
on 2/4/2007 Well that how to is very poorly done an rather old by the looks of it id rate that as lower than 1 out of 5. My best thing i can say is dont buy a mp3 player with in built power, get one where you can change the batteries so when they die as they will u dont have to buy a whole new player. Also the comment that hard drive players are the only ones that can handle pc data is rubish, any pc periphial can if it has storage space eg the inbuilt ram in a camera, mp3 player, phone, etc. Also the comment of the of recording on your mp3 player well i think thats about the dumbest thing that they bother to put in there why would you want to record a low quality song hmmm, i spose people do listen to 128k still rather than 320k songs so you choose, the main point is try an get a player that will play 320k songs so you can get the best out of your listing experience. Also i can not recommend enough to not by a ipod because they are over priced an under featured compared to what you can get.
ampitup said
on 10/26/2006 There are other points to consider that aren't addressed here, such as will you be exercising with the Mp3 player? You don't want to buy a hard-drive based player if you plan to jog or bike with it. There's a good online test to take to see which is the best player for you. It asks a few questions and tells you which Mp3 player is the right fit for your lifestyle. Go to http://www.thedigitalbeat.com/test.html to check it out.
Anonymous said
on 11/22/2005 There are 2 kinds of memory in MP3 players. They are flash and hard-drive memories. Which to choose depends on what you want to use it for.
Flash memory:
Usually found in smaller players. This is good for people who want to take their music snowboarding, biking and those who are clumsy. Flash memory uses little memory chips. These are very handy for those who won't be babying their MP3's around. If you drop them, they will more than likely work. This is from personal experience. Flash memory capacity goes up to 4GB, and then anything past that is not as cost effective as HD players. Examples of flash based MP3 players are the creative zen nano (up to 1GB) and iPod nano(2 or 4 GB).
HD players:
These are the more bulky ones. The most famous example is the iPod. With these kind of players, a hard drive spins around inside of the player to read music. The inside really looks like a record player. How do they break so easy? The little sensor arm on the Hard-Drive can be misaligned due to extreme jarring, and can malfunction. Some players have a sensor that locks the hard drive arm when it senses falling to prevent malfunction. These kind of players are really great for those with a lot of music and/or people that will baby their MP3 player.
Anonymous said
on 11/22/2005 In MP3 players, "signal to noise ratio" is the sound quality of the player, so look out for that. Also look out for output power, which will tell you how good it sounds when hooked up to speakers. With both values, the higher the better.