Digital Audio MP3 Player Review

The Good

Great for taking music, photos, and video on the go; lots of choices and options available; most of the big names are good quality

The Bad

Pricing is not much different between big name brands and smaller brands

The Bottom Line

Getting a digital audio MP3 player is a good idea for even casual music lovers. The key is determining which features matter the most to you and what size hard drive you’re interested in. From there, you should be able to make a smart consumer buying decision.

Review

If you’re ready to jump on the digital audio MP3 player bandwagon, but you’re not sure which of the models on the market will fit your music listening needs the best, let’s look at the options. All of the main digital audio MP3 player models have similar features.

The majority have screens ranging from 1.5 inches to 2.5 inches in size. LCD screens are typically going to give you a crisper, cleaner image than other types but unless you plan on watching video on your player that won’t be a big deal. One of the major considerations is going to be the size of the hard drive you want. While you can find digital audio MP3 player models with hard drives as large as 250 GB, most people prefer to pick something smaller. The most common sizes are in the 4 GB to 16 GB range. You can hold between 1,000 and 4,000 songs with that amount of space which is generally sufficient. Remember that photos and videos do take up more space. Now if you don’t want anything that large and you only want a digital audio MP3 player that can play music then you might want to look for even smaller players, such as the iPod Shuffle. Many of these units are very affordable, have decent amounts of storage space (around 1 GB or less usually), and are sometimes built to be more portable. They make the best choices for people wanting to use the players for exercise or at work. There are some other features that you might want to look for. The Zune and some Creative digital audio MP3 player models include wireless synching. This means that you do not have to connect your player to your computer with a cord in order to move music or other media onto the player. Another feature you might want to look for is an FM tuner which is standard on most digital audio MP3 player models with the exception of the Apple iPods. While most of the digital audio MP3 players on the market today are going to be fairly good choices, stick to names you recognize. You’ll have the best luck. You might also want to read some customer reviews of different players you’re considering to make sure you’re making the best choice possible.