Looking For an MP3 Player?

Levi Bloom

If you don't have an mp3 player, and even if you do, you should check out all the new stuff that's going on. I'm hoping this article will give you some idea of what kind of mp3 player you want and some tips on what to look for in an mp3 player.

Maybe you work out and need something small and skip-proof for running or lifting. Maybe you have an 8 hour (or longer) plane ride when you go home and need to pass the time. Maybe you want a new one just for the sake of having a new one. Whatever it is, this article should help you choose.

First, for those of you who want something for working out: The two most important things to look for are size/weight and solid state memory, things CD players lack. You want something that you can clip to your shorts or strap to your arm that won't interfere with your movements, and you want it to be light enough so you don't even notice it. (Tip: Get a lithium ion battery to save even more weight.) To be sure that your player will not skip if you move too much or too fast, get one with solid state internal Flash memory, which has no moving parts so it can't skip. These are usually available as 64 to 512 MB models, with a 64 MB model holding roughly an hour of music. Prices typically range from $100 to $300.

On the other hand, you may want to store all 16,000 songs in your collection on your mp3 player so you never hear the same one twice. In this case you need a hard drive based mp3 player, commonly known as an mp3 jukebox, for which you could pay up to $500. It will be a little bigger and heavier than and not quite as durable as a solid state mp3 player, but that isn't a concern if you just want to sit around and listen to music. And they are still far more portable than a CD player.

Torn between a small, light, solid state mp3 player and a hard drive based player that holds thousands of songs? Well, the iPod Mini may be for you! The iPod Mini is just one model in a new breed of small hard drive mp3 players. They are a little lighter and smaller than normal hard drive players, and hold more songs than the average solid state mp3 player. (Did I mention the iPod Mini comes in blue, green, gold, and pink?) That's it for the main differences, but here are some more things you should look for when making a purchase: long battery life, an FM tuner, voice recorder, an easy to read screen, and compatibility with your computer.

If you're looking to purchase online, I recommend www.amazon.com. But first you should check www.mp3-player-guide.com (which has a buyer's guide and reviews) so you can make a better decision.
About the author:

Levi Bloom has been studying mp3 players for the past few years, so he knows his stuff. If you want more, check out his websites: and

MP3 News


Yahoo! News Search Results for <?=mp3;?> New Music: Black Lips: "Starting Over" [MP3] (Pitchfork) Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell So, 2008 is history and we're back. During the break Black Lips released an mp3 of "Starting Over", a new track from their forthcoming album 200 Million Thousand . It starts off as a jangly, "There She Goes"-ish kind of thing, but then those slack voices... Chinavasion's plug-in MP3 player / FM transmitter / etcetera seems surprising... Chinavasion 's latest piece of steaming trash is actually very un-trash-like, as it thoughtfully meshes a number of in-car technologies into one single cigarette adapter doodad. The Plug-In Car MP4 Player with LCD Display manages to bundle an MP4 / MP3 player, 1.5-inch LCD and 4GB of memory into a d... Premiere: Tim Hecker: "Sea of Pulses" [MP3/Stream] (Pitchfork) It's somewhat of a strange thing to pluck a track from a Tim Hecker album and listen to it on its own, as his records tend to flow one piece into the next. But "Sea of Pulses", the second cut from his forthcoming An Imaginary Country , works well on its own and also gives a good idea of wha... Recording Industry Drops MP3 Spies (CBS News) Recording industry trade group reportedly drops the company responsible for gathering evidence against those accused of sharing copyrighted music. WMP 12 toxic to certain MP3 files (ZDNet) A cautionary note to those using Windows beta 1 build 7000. Hype Machine Zeitgeist: Listen in Full to the 50 Most Blogged Albums of 2008,... Music mashup site shows how User Experience is done. MP3 blog aggregator Hype Machine launched a new microsite today called the Music Blog Zeitgeist . There you can listen, for free, to entire albums from the most blogged-about musicians of 2008. Bringing together a whole host of different tec... Download the MP3 or listen to the Lana Carson interview. (The Muskegon Chroni... Grand Haven historian Wallace "Wally" K. Ewing has donated one of the largest and best preserved Civil War collections of correspondence in the nation to the Archives of Michigan. Calexico sweetens a tee (USA Today) I'm a little behind on my seasonal surfing, so I just came across this gem Threadless dropped during the holidays: an exclusive track by Calexico. Yes, the T-shirt site has posted an MP3. The song was actually inspired by a... Ultimate Ears intros MetroFi range of earphones (MacNN) Ultimate Ears, owned by Logitech, announced on Monday the upcoming release of its MetroFi line (not pictured) of noise-isolating earphones. The MetroFi 170 and MetroFi 220 are compatible with iPods, iPhones and more generic music phones and MP3 players thanks to their 3.5mm stereo jack and are desig... Wal-Mart worker charged (The Sault Star) A Wal-Mart employee is accused of pinching merchandise from the discount department store. He allegedly took nine MP3 players Saturday, police said. John [...]