So how do you decide which one to choose? Here are a few ideas to help you make your decision.
Audio or Video or Both? Do you intend to play only audio tracks, or do you also want to play video? If you need video, you will need to select a MP4 or MP5 player. But if you only want to listen to music, you can probably get away with an inexpensive MP3 player. For video though, you will need to get a MP4 or MP5 player.
Flash Memory or Hard Disk: The songs that you download on to your digital music player will be stored in memory. This can be a flash memory, or a hard disk. Flash memory modules usually have smaller capacities than hard disks. Common flash memory capacities on the market today are 4 gigabytes (GB) and 8 GB, which hard disk capacities can range up to 160GB. A few things to note about units with hard disks – they are typically more expensive than MP3 players with flash memory; they usually consume more power (more frequent recharging or more batteries) than flash memory units; a jolt or bump can cause "skipping"; a hard enough jolt or bump can damage the spindle mechanism of the hard disk.
Storage Capacity: How much memory do you need in your player? Well, that depends on how many songs you intend to store in the unit. Typical music tracks in MP3 format range in size from 4MB to 5MB. So for every 1GB of storage, you can expect to store between 200 and 250 songs. Use this as a rough guide to determine the capacity that you are looking for. The other consideration is market conditions. Currently, you get the most "bang for your buck" with 4GB units. So you may be better off buying a unit with 4GB capacity, rather than one with 1 or 2GB.
Built-In Battery or External: Your digital music player will be powered by a battery. MP3 players on the market today can either have a built-in, rechargeable Li-ion batter, or may use an external (usually AAA size) battery as their power source. Units with built-in batteries are usually much smaller, and do not have the added expense of batteries. Units that use AAA batteries are typically larger, and also have longer play times. If you're flying from LA to NY and your built-in battery runs out of juice at 30,000 ft., there's not much that you can do!
Budget: The market can supply you with any model and configuration you need to fit your (reasonable) budget. So before you start shopping for a MP3 players, figure out how much you want to spend, and then search within your constraints. It is very easy to lose sight of budget constraints once you look at the bells and whistles available on today's models!
This is not intended to be a comprehensive checklist that you can use to make a decision. Instead, the intent here is to give you a good starting point for your questions as you embark on this effort to select the best unit for you. Do your own research as well, and talk to others before you spend your money.
