Choosing an MP3 Player For You

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 0 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #6,178 in Tech & Geek, #141,860 overall

Before we start...

MP3 means MPEG 1, Audio Layer 3. These files come from what were originally WAV files; the difference is that MP3 files are one tenth the size of the other.

MP3 made it big as an audio file compression format because it is so efficient at shrinking files for easy distribution over the Web.

Podcasting means grabbing a file from the Net, and listening to it sometime later when you have free time. Podcasts are also average-sized files, but the term applies more to audio performances longer than songs, e.g. an important news commentary, a talk show episode.

Smallest ever MP3 player (40 mm across, 10 mm thick) ... ?

From EMP-Z

The 15-gram EMP-Z Coin-Sized MP3 Player
Source: Mobile Magazine

MP3 Players to Watch Out For 

Consumer Search, the inventor of "reviewing the tech reviewers," picked the following:

iRiver Clix - 2GB
Rated as "Most features." The iRiver Clix (shown at right, upper), just like the SanDisk Sansa e200 series, is a close approximation of the iPod nano in reviews. While bulkier by an ounce than the nano, it has a larger 2.2-inch color LCD touchscreen with a great interface. Sound and video both score high, with a list of enticing features to boot: FM tuner, voice recorder, equalizer, Macromedia Flash Player and Flash games, and an alarm clock. Kudos for the long battery life (20 hours).

Apple iPod - 80GB
Rated as "Best large-capacity MP3 player (20,000 songs)." Everything sounds predictable when reviewing something that is the benchmark standard. Yet it's true in the case of the lord of hard-drive players, with reviewers concurring that the iPod system (shown at right, lower) is the only one so far which offers the most fully integrated music experience from hardware to library. The new search function can now pinpoint specific songs faster. Due to the music formats unique to Apple MP3 players, music downloads more or less can't go far beyond the Apple iTunes Store.

Want to learn which got picked as "Nearest iPod rival" and "Budget MP3 player"? Click here.

Read Consumer Search's full report here.

... Or less smaller than this? The Oregon Scientific MP3 Player at 128 MB

From lordpercy.com

2 hours of MP3 songs... yes, but it's the smallest!
Source:lordpercy.com

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Without a doubt, the biggest mp3 player evah.

From Colossal

The 20-dollar Colossal MP3 measures roughly a foot tall, is powered by 4 AA batteries and holds 256 MB worth of media.
Source:flickr.com

Last Minute Notes 

Size
128 MB = 2 hours worth of songs

MP3 player screens
OLED (orgnic light emitting diode) screens are ommonly encountered in handhelds like PDAs and most media players. Their screens' colored images consume less power, are very thin and compact, can display full motion videos, and can even be viewed under sunlight.

TFT (thin film transistor) screens go by the other name active matrix LCDs. If a device has a TFT screen, then it has a flat panel full color display (regardless of lighting conditions too), and playing of video is one notch higher than OLED.

LCD (liquid crystal display) screens are very durable; so enduring, in fact, that what used to only sit in our watches and calculator-readouts are now on our TV screens! As we have experienced, they take up less space and power, can display colors that can match those of TFTs (in the case of the latest LCDs), and can now display video, too.

Music Formats
AAC - Apple's music file format, playable only in iPod models
lossless - the technology which describes Apple's AAC format. This file format is way more space-saving than MP3.
WMA - Windows Media Audio, to which most media players are compatible, except iPods
WMA DRM - copy-righted WMA; not all players are compatible with WMA DRM and subscription services

Now, where are those F-R-E-E MP3s? 

www.sideload.com - As the Internet slang of the same name suggests, it's something like file-sharing and not at the same time. Sideload only accepts certified-legal music, and only so because it is essentially a collage of links to legal music files from countless websites across the entire Net.

www.archive.org - perhaps the most diverse and the easiest to get used to. Simply put, an online library of text material, audio and video clips on an endless variety of topics. Has tons of Grateful Dead material too.

http://podcastalley.com/ - Podcast Alley is the podcast lovers portal. Featuring the best Podcast Directory and the Top 10 podcasts, as voted on by the listeners.

download.com by CNet - 75,425 free MP3s from one of the Internet's top tech-review sites. Elsewhere in the site: free software and PC games too!

Music Is Power Podcast - as the header says, "Rediscover New Music Every Friday." It's an podcast-cum-blog managed by "Dmitri K". Now and then a major artist is listed, but most of the time, it's plain old hard-to-find artists' fun.

The most expensive mp3 player yet

From Trekstor

At $20,000, this 18K-gold and 63 diamond-strong MP3 player can only have a billionaire for an inspiration: Russian-Canadian billionaire Alex Shnaider.
Source:Gizmag

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Reader Feedback 

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  • Reply
    Zackfaire Zackfaire Sep 12, 2008 @ 1:30 am
    hey thanks for sharing this great lens. and i must say that expensive mp3 player is well... very painful to the pockets. only a millionaire can afford something like that.
    http://www.siakoi.com/business/shopping/buying-used-mp3-players-getting-the-most-out-of-your-money.html
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by hearthealth

Hearthealth is basically into Net research, and if he can help it, will teach in college, too.
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