There's three kinds of portable MP3 players on the market today, depending on how the MP3 files are stored: CD, memory chip or hard drive. The CD players are the cheapest ($50-$100) and will provide you with about 10 hours of music on a single CD. They are CD's though so they're big and don't like to be jostled too much. The memory based MP3 players are small to very small. You can fit 1 to 4 hours of music on them, depending on the amount of memory they are outfitted with, typically in 32 MB increments up to 512 MB. 64 or 128 MB are currently common sizes (a CD holds 650 MB). The hard drive based players occupy the top rung, especially in price but also in capacity. 20 GB is common. This will hold a vast library of MP3's. They're also the hardest on batteries though. Like CD's, they don't like to be dropped but will take a little more jostling.
I wanted something small, that was really tough and not too expensive so if I lost it, it wouldn't be a big problem. I loose things and the smaller they are, the more likely I am to loose them. This lead me to the memory based MP3 players.
If you're looking to buy an MP3 player, you may want consider Creative's MuVo. It's an easy to use, pocket-sized player that also doubles as a thumb drive. A thumb drive is a memory chip that plugs into a computer's USB port. Most thumb drives will fit on a keychain and the MuVo will too. It's that tiny.
This
is the really great part. You don't need any special software other than the
Windows XP or 2000. When you plug the MuVo, it presents itself as a removable
disk. You add or remove music using the familar Windows drag and drop. It
accepts music in the MP3 or Windows Media (wma) format. Of course, you can drag
any kind of files you want there, the player will just ignore them. If you need
temporary storage to copy files between computers, you can use it that way too.
If your only USB ports are on the back of your computer, you can get a cheap USB
hub ($10-$25) to make it more convenient.
When
you want to listen to music, you slip the (white) USB portion of the device into
a (blue) shell which contains a (single AAA) battery, USB connector and
electronics. Press "Play", set the volume and attach the earphones.
The only other controls the MuVo has is to skip forward and backwards tracks.
There is a fairly useless "Repeat" button: you use it to mark the
start and end of a loop. Marking the end of the loop starts playing the loop.
There is a pair of earbuds included with the MuVo. At first I was put off by them, I'm not much a fan of earbuds but now I use them all the time. You get better sound from a set of traditional earphones but the earbuds are small and since I use them mostly when riding a bicycle, there's no wind noise. Also, they much look less dorky. I look as cool as a chubby 47 year old geezer with a white beard can look. Admittedly, this is not a very competitve category for coolness. Also, they can be worn comfortably, if you use a little patience fitting them. You can wrap the earbuds around the MuVo player and have the whole thing fit unobtrusively in your front shirt pocket.
If I had to make a list of its best features, roughly in order, I would list
them as:
There is room for improvement though:
Amazingly enough, you can actually update the MuVo's firmware. It's easy! You need to download the software from Creative's web site, insert the MuVo in the USB slot in "Restore" mode (i.e. you hold the "play" button for 10 seconds) and run the program. Voila, bugs begone!
Overall, I'm happy as heck with it!