Hard Drive MP3 Players

Hard drive players are the most common type sold in stores today.  These are the most heavy and largest of MP3 players and offer large amounts of storage.  If you’re someone who has tons and tons of music and love to watch movies on-the-go, you’ll be most interested in these hard drive music players.  Popular players that fall into the hard drive category include the Apple iPod and Microsoft Zune.

So if you’re giving an MP3 player as a gift or buying one for yourself and know you have a large collection of music, photos, videos, and data that you want to carry around with you, you’ll find hard drive players to be the best.  But due to these convenient features, hard drive MP3 players will use a lot more power which will make them only last about 20 hours.  As you do more advanced functions like playing games or watching movies, you’ll cut the battery life to around 6 hours.  Finally, the major disadvantage with this category of music players is they can be prone to skipping.  So if you’re into exercising, you may not be suited for hard drive based players.

Advantages of Hard Drive MP3 Players:

• Largest capacities for songs, videos, pictures, and games.
• Multimedia monsters–you can do just about anything with these players.
• Typically have large screens which are great for watching movies while in the car or bus.
• Comparatively inexpensive for the amount of hard drive space.

Disadvantages:

• Usually large and bulky (there are some mini-hard drive models out there which are pretty small).
• Not good for people who like to exercise or run.

Flash MP3 Players

Flash memory MP3 players are the smallest and lightest players you can buy.  But with that compact size, you’re very limited in the number of songs you can put on the unit.  However, there is a major advantage with flash memory music players:  they can never skip.  If you’re an athletic person and like to run or exercise while listening to music, you’ll find these players to be an optimum choice.  Flash MP3 players also have really good battery life and get you up to 28 hours per charge.

Advantages of Flash MP3 Players:

• Smallest and most portable of the MP3 players.
• They don’t have moving parts which makes them the BEST choice for people who like to exercise because they never skip during playback.

Disadvantages:

• Can be very expensive if you want a lot of hard drive space.
• Not great for watching videos or viewing pictures because of their smaller screens.
• They are very easy to lose if you’re a forgetful person.

MP3 CD Players

While the technology for CD players are almost completely obsolete due to the superior power of flash and hard drive based players, there are still a few on the market today.  Basically these players work by using CD’s burned with MP3 and other music files.  A typical CD can hold about 10 hours of music.  The major advantage with CD MP3 players is they are very inexpensive to buy and operate.  All they require a computer with a CD burner and you’re on your way.

Advantages of MP3 CD Players:

• Very inexpensive to purchase and operate.  A spindle of CD’s for about $15 can get you about 1,000 hours of music.

Disadvantages:

• They are big, bulky, and require you to carry CD’s around with you if you want a wide range of music.
• If you exercise a lot while listening to music, these players will skip during playback.

Now that you know the basic three types of MP3 players, it’s time to start browsing the site for the player that works best for you.  With so many different MP3 players out there, you’re guaranteed to find the one that has the features you need and is friendly to your wallet.