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Six Tips for Buying an MP3 Player with a Hard Drive
If you're the type of person who loves to have all your music with you everywhere you go, then a hard-drive portable music player (an MP3 player) might be just what you need. Here
are six tips to help you find the hard drive player that's right for you:
1. Understand the basics.
A player that uses hard disk-based storage can allow you to keep your entire music collection on a single device, depending on the size of your library. There are many choices in hard
drive players on the market today. The storage space ranges from 2-6 gigabytes (GB) to 20 GB or larger. The size, weight, and cost of a player will depend on the amount of
music you want to store on it.
In general, hard drive players are more fragile than devices that use flash memory
because they have more moving parts. Devices that use hard disk drives might break if dropped or handled roughly, but can last a long time if you take care of them.
2. Make sure you're getting all the goodies.
You can get a number of cool features with a player. Some players can view photos, back up and store computer files, record voice notes you make to yourself, let you listen to FM radio,
or even record FM radio. And some come with extra accessories like high-quality headphones, a belt clip, or an armband. Because most of these features and accessories are included
at no additional cost, be sure to consider them when comparing devices.
3. Look for easy navigation and a color display.
When you have thousands of songs on your player, you really need an easy way to select your music by artist, album, or genre, and organize it into playlists. Look for an interface
that lets you navigate through your files easily.
In addition, almost all hard drive players have screens, but color screens are more vivid and make it easier to see what you're doing. Not only do color displays make a device easier
to use, they look cool and, in most cases, mean that you can also use your device as a portable photo viewer.
4. Consider an FM tuner.
Having an FM tuner in your device gives you even more flexibility. If you want to take a break from your music collection, it's easy to switch over and listen to your favorite music
station, talk radio show, or a news program for a while. An FM tuner is a key feature that many players offer at no extra cost, so make sure to look for this capability when making
your final selection.
5. Pick the right size for you.
The price of a player will depend on its storage capacity—the more gigabytes of storage it has, the more music it can hold and the more it will cost. If you're ripping your own
CDs, using a player with Windows Media Audio (WMA) support as well as MP3 support gives you the most music per gigabyte. Here are some quick rules of thumb for how much music per gigabyte
you get, depending on the quality of the compression:
|
Capacity |
*Number of songs |
*Hours of play |
|
4 GB |
2,000 |
150 |
|
6 GB |
3,000 |
225 |
|
20 GB |
10,000 |
700 |
|
60 GB |
30,000 |
2000+ |
* Approximate figures based on 64-Kbps WMA
6. Don't get locked into one online store.
Make sure you have the flexibility to choose from over 1 million tracks of music from multiple online music stores such as MSN Music, Napster, MusicMatch, and Wal-Mart—it
can be the key to getting the music you want. Several stores even offer subscription services so you can download all the songs you want for about the cost of a CD each month.
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