MP3 Portable Players

I like to burn music onto CDs to ensure I've got a "lasting" copy of my favourite tracks that I can listen to on the stereo at home (I've got it on right now!) and in the car, but I also wouldn't like to be without my mp3 portable player.

There are numerous benefits of portable mp3 players. For a start they're generally pretty small - like a pack of cards or cigarettes - so they're much smaller than walkmans or portable CD players. You can easily stick one in your pocket and hardly know it's there.

So if I'm off travelling on business like I do frequently, or going out jogging (which I tend to do much less frequently!) I like to slip my portable mp3 player into my pocket.

Mentioning jogging reminds me that unlike some CD players or walkmans, portable mp3 players have few or no moving parts so are much, much less likely to skip tracks while you're on the move.

With a combination of the smaller size, and few or no moving parts portable mp3 players also tend to have a much healthier battery life than that of a portable CD player, for example, which might be dead within an hour or two of use.

You also have the same functionality of being able to create your own playlists very easily indeed. You just plug the player into your PC, decide on the tracks you want to upload to it and you're away.

So I can choose nice, chilled out music for relaxing in a hotel after a long days work, or some club tracks for jogging to.

Its just so easy.

So how do you make a choice from all the portable mp3 players available?

In my experience, like in most things electronic, you get what you pay for.

The first consideration should be how much you're willing or able to spend - and from that you can make narrow down the choices.

Memory is probably one of the biggest factors of all in choosing portable mp3 players. Different players have different memory limits - and so this controls how many tracks you can save to your player.

Some players come with 32MB of memory, though if you can afford the more expensive 64MB memory players you'll be glad you did. It's worth noting that a 32MB memory will allow you to upload around about an hours worth of songs. If you're going on a long trip, you'll be grateful for that extra hour to give you some flexibility in your listening.

Also bear in mind that some of the top-end models have expandable memory slots. You can save tracks onto little electronic cards, or hard disks, then change them or upgrade them for more powerful memory if the need (and your wallet) allows.

Other features worth taking note of are the battery life (usually good - but the better the battery life - the more cost effective for you). Do note, however, that many factors will affect the battery life of mp3 portable players, such as how many times you've recharged the batteries, and how loud you like your music.

Some higher-end models also have digital equalizers so you can change the tonation of songs to your own liking - and I can get that extra bit of base that makes such a difference to so many songs.

In the end, it's a matter of personal choice.

And there are a lot of options.

If you'd like to learn a little more about the mp3 portable player I ended up choosing, and which I've been very pleased with so far because of it's great sound quality and amazing memory capacity, then please click here or to visit the best supplier I've found so far so you can take a look at the options, please click here.

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