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MP3 Player Buying Guide
When searching for the perfect gift for someone who loves music, or if you love music yourself, consider purchasing a MP3 player. These small, but handy music players allow you to take your music collection with you on the road. Whether you are in the car or subway, these powerful little devices can provide hours of your own special music, music that you choose. There are many sites on the Internet today where you can download music; equip yourself with an MP3 player to take your tunes with you wherever you go.
MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer 3, which allows music to be recorded digitally, and has the ability to compress music files without losing the quality. This allows you to store your music in a lot less memory space than if you could not compress the files, and allows you to take all your favorites with you where ever you go.
MP3 players run between $50 to $300. The reason for the wide price range is mainly the capacity available on the player as well as added features. New MP3 players offer you the ability to take more songs with you and organize and manage your music like never before.
There are many good quality, well-known brands on the marketplace today including Apple, Archos, Creative Labs, Panasonic, RCA, Samsung, and Sony, but other brands are available and offer good quality solutions as well. In order to decide what brand is the right one for you, you need to think about how you will be using the player. If you are going to want to listen to tunes while working out in the gym, jogging around town, or hiking, you need an MP3 player that does not skip easily. If your MP3 player might get wet, for instance if you sweat a lot or are using it outside constantly, then look for a waterproof player. You may need to find a player that is light and can be clipped on a belt, armband, or strap of your backpack if you are really active.
There are flash-based MP3 players are light, and smaller than hard disk players. Flash-based MP3 players have no moving parts and are called solid state, so there is no skipping and they cannot be damaged easily. Flash players provide good value but they only provide for a couple of hours of music. They usually have 128 MB of 256 MB of memory.
Hard-drive MP3 players offer much more room for holding all of your music. Some of the latest models can hold up to 40 GB of music files and that is a lot of music; approximately 10,000 songs. Also, with a hard-drive MP3 player you can use extra storage for transporting photos and computer files from one computer to another.
The overall look and design of your MP3 player is another consideration. There are so many different models, sizes, shapes, weights, colors, etc. Pick one that fits the way you are going to use it and what you like the best. Also, look at the type of display available. Some show all kinds of information about the music playing, such as the title of the song, the artist, and the length of the selection. Some models allow you to add information that can be displayed with the song that is playing.
Each MP3 player comes with its own music management software, which is another factor that you should consider when buying an MP3 player. This kind of software helps you manage the playlists, as well as transfer songs from your computer to your MP3 player. There is relatively simple music management software where you can simply use drag-and-drop functions on your computer to transfer songs to the player. This type of software is usually found with flash players. For a high-capacity player, you may need a more comprehensive music management software package to provide the organization, playlists, and folders. You can organize your music by artist, by album or playlist, and change what is on the MP3 player depending on your mood or what you might be doing.
The compatibility of your MP3 player with your computer is also another issue to consider. If you have a Mac, not all MP3 players are compatible. Most MP3 players are compatible with PCs. You can take advantage of a USB port to transfer your music from your PC to your player, but to do this you have to make sure that you have a recent version of Windows. You can still transfer music without the latest version but it may take more time. Just make sure that you have the system requirement on your computer as listed for the MP3 player you want to buy.
Today’s market offers all sorts of additional features on the MP3 players, such as a built-in tuner for FM radio. There are voice-recording capabilities along with an integrated microphone. There are also more functions available today to tweak the sound, including equalizer controls. So check out the specific features you want.
There are many available sites online today where you can buy and download music including Itunes, Napster, Kazaa, Amazon.com, MP3.com, Emusic.com, and even Walmart. There are many different offerings and prices, so check them out. Another thing of interest is that many artists are starting to distribute their songs directly from their own websites. These can be free or for sale so keep your eyes and ears open. It is also a way to find and listen to new artists who are just starting out and trying to build a following. You can be first on your block, so to speak.
A good quality headphone set is invaluable, so make sure you check out the accessories available. You can get things like AC adapters so your battery usage and expense goes down, and for those who want to take their music with them in the car, cigarette lighter adapters are available for MP3 players.
Extending the capacity is one more issue to consider when purchasing a new MP3 player. Check to see if you can add more memory or about additional storage. The price of storage keeps coming down, and it may prove cheaper to buy a player with less capacity now and add storage later as you find you need it.
MP3 continues to be the most popular music file out there however, there are a few more formats popping up giving an increased number of different formats out in the marketplace today. For instance iTunes saves songs as an AAC file, Napster songs are saved in a WMA format and while most MP3 players can decode both MP3 and WMA not all MP3 players can decode the AAC files. As new technology comes out in the market, there are more and more files than can be decoded, but it is something to keep in mind.
The latest technology today has new portable media players that can play video files in addition to audio files. These players include a large hard drive that can literally hold thousands of songs, hundreds of hours of video and several hundred thousand photos. These players come with a small color LCD screen.
So get a gift of a MP3 player for yourself or your friend and give the gift of music. Jump on the bandwagon, put in your earphones and start rocking out to your own tunes, in your own designed playlist and start enjoying the ride.
Article By Karla Soule, May 2004.
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