Kevins Tips

Basic Concept Overview of MP3 Players

Personally I’m not an Apple (iPod) fan.  I think they are waaaaaayyyyy overpriced.  They were not the first to come up with the concept of the MP3 Player and I don’t think they are the best either.

Apple limits you in memory.  They ONLY have devices (including the iPhone) that have built in memory and you can not expand it.  A lot of other brands (not all of them), allow you to expand the memory using something like an SD memory card, which can be purchased separately in various memory sizes.

From my personal experience, I would recommend a Sansa Brand (they come in MANY memory sizes and options).

Here are some examples…

Some Sansa Models do not have expandable memory, but many do.

Some Sansa models also include an FM radio (that works pretty well), a Photo Viewer, it plays videos, and is a voice recorder.  iPods in this price range often only play MP3s

Something no one tells you, is that when you load up an iPod from your computer, you can’t unload the music to another computer.  There is a lot of protection crap (like DRM-Digital Rights Management) out there that keep the average law abiding person from doing simple things - and iPods are particularly restrictive.  Almost all other brands of MP3 players, will allow you to copy your files to another computer.  It simply looks like another Hard Drive on your Computer - If you can click and drag files on your computer now, you can do it to an MP3 player.  There is also a lot of protection crap that prevents you from making multiple copies, like when you have more then one iPod - it’s quite frustrating.

A lot of people use software called “iTunes” made by Apple - another product I’m not crazy about.  Check out Media Monkey the version you’ll need is FREE and does a LOT.  You can play around with it now, before you get a MP3 player.  I also use it to listen to Music from the Internet - there are a few hundred stations you can play.

Now I’ve touched on this protection thing, let me elaborate a bit.  If you take a CD and “rip” it (aka copy it) - the files are in a format called WAV - it’s a HUGE (about 30-40MB) file size (but high quality), so the format MP3 was created.  It’s MUCH smaller (about 3-4MB).  MP3s are reduced quality, but the average person can’t tell.  Now the music industry came out with some other formats like WMA.  These have hidden information in them and they can put a lot of restrictions on you, like you can’t play it on some devices, or you can’t make copies, or you can only make 2 copies, etc. etc.

MP3’s play on EVERY device, they are the most “universal”.  You’ll see some other formats like OGG, AAC, etc (there are a LOT of formats).  I’d stick with MP3s.  If you have a CD collection, then rip them to the MP3 format (you can use Media Monkey or something similar) to do it.

OK - Back to Players…

MP3 Players come in a variety of sizes and options from very simple and basic with a small amount of memory (like 1GB) to a massive collection like 80GB that will also play movies/videos.

1GB=250 songs (approx) ~ 25 Full CDs (if you wanted EVERY song on the CD).

The smaller ones may simply play songs randomly (so you can’t pick the song you want next), may not have a screen, etc.  The larger ones will have a screen, possibly show photos or even play videos.