MP3 Player
How to Buy MP3 Players
MP3 player market covers a range of shapes, sizes, features, storage capacities, file formats, and download services. So, how do you choose?
Every month there are more MP3 players on the market, so how do you choose the right one for you? First, there's the question of design. A player can have every feature in the world, but if the design doesn't match your lifestyle or if the interface is impenetrable, you still won't enjoy it. You'll want to look closely at performance; sound quality and battery life can make or break a player, especially if you travel a lot or have the so-called golden ears of an audiophile.
Look for a color screen that can display JPEG and BMP digital images. This is a nice feature for those who like to carry their precious digital memories with them. In addition to offering photo viewing capabilities, color displays are brighter and easy to read than their monochrome counterparts. Also look out for players with crystal-clear OLED screens, which offer better viewing angles and lower power consumption (though they are harder to read in bright sunlight). Increasingly, MP3 players are even offering video playback.
The latest technology to be cropping up in MP3 players is wireless connectivity. A prime example is the Microsoft Zune, which uses proprietary Wi-Fi to allow users to share songs with each other over the airwaves via a beaming feature. There's also the SanDisk Sansa Connect, which can hop onto any Wi-Fi network to access the Yahoo Music store for wireless music purchasing and downloads. Yet another, and very different, example is the Insignia MP3 Player & Image Viewer. This player offers built-in A2DP Bluetooth, meaning it can be paired with a compatible pair of wireless headphones for a cord-free listening experience. Wireless functionality is still in the up-and-coming stages, so the execution may not be perfect on many devices quite yet. Still, if you're looking for the cutting-edge, this is it.
Most MP3 players that record high-quality audio suitable for music recording as opposed to voice memos or interviews do so through an analog line-input, but there are exceptions. A few devices also record digitally or from mike-level sources. The former works great for dubbing tracks from modern stereo components. The latter lets you use a small, unpowered microphone for live recording. (You can record live audio without a mike-level input but only with a powered mike that outputs a line-level signal to the device's line-in jack.) If you want the highest-quality recordings, make sure the player has a decent ADC and can record to uncompressed WAV files. Real-time encoding to MP3 or WMA comes in particularly handy when encoding from vinyl, cassette, or CD without a computer.