How to choose an MP3 Player

In the last few years the music players changed in a drastic way. The big players that we used to use got replaced by small gadgets easy to carry and lightweight that provides us with hours of entertainment.
The leading brand players have an excellent audio quality so if you're into that it's advisable to get a known brand player and not a no name player.

This guide will hopefully help you a little to choose better and to fit the player to your purpose.

1. Fitting the player to the needs of the user
The players are divided to 2 groups, flash players and hard drive players.
Flash Players:
The information is stored on a built in flash memory or on a card. The advantages of this type of player are that it's lightweight, shockproof and consumes low electricity.
Those kinds of features make it ideal for those who engage in sports.
Hard drive players:
Very similar to a hard drive in a computer, the hard drive in the player allows you to store big sizes of digital information. Players like that are for people who need a lot of storage room.
These players are more sensitive to shocks and they are more expensive than the flash players.

2. Sound quality
The sound quality is a very important factor when choosing an mp3 player. The mp3 player can be impressive on the outside but it won't be worth at all if it won't provide the sound quality we are looking for.
Most of the big companies like Cowon and iRiver provide you with an excellent sound quality and that's why its recommended to buy a player from the well known companies.
Sampling quality:
One of the most important things that affect the sound is the bit rate, the bit rate is measured with Kbps and when that rate is higher than the file will be more similar to the original and the sound quality would be higher.
Also when the file has more quality than it takes more storage on the mp3 player.
It's important to choose a player that supports a few bitrates (128, 160, 192, 256, 320) and at least 128kbps. Also it is recommended that the player will support VBR a thing that helps make the files smaller. This how on the loud parts it will take more memory but on the softer parts it takes less memory.

Signal to noise ratio: This shows the sound quality, and it measures by dB, a good ratio is between 80 to 90 dB and when the ratio is higher than the sound is more crisp and clean.
Harmonic distortion: most of the times when you use high volume or wrong use of the equalizer than the sound will get dissertated. Harmonic distortion is between 0.001 and 0.01 is considered good and you shouldn't get something that is more than that.

Sound volume: Measured in mWATT, you should choose an mp3 player that is at least 15 mWATTS, if you are going to listen to the mp3 player in loud places than you should go with a higher sound.

Equalizer: Most of the Mp3 players offer an option to change and improve the sound with the equalizer. The equalizer offers a few presets'. A good equalizer offers a large scale of presets and allows the user to put in his own presets.

Headphones: Most of the mp3 players come with headphones, it's important to know that sometimes with a pair of good headphones you can improve the sound quality of the simplest mp3 player.

3. Storage capacity
The players today have memory that ranges from a few hundreds mega bytes and goes to more than 100 GB.
Lets say the average song takes 3 minutes and that takes 3MB, on 5GB player you can store between 1000-2000 songs, depends on their quality. Most of the companies refer to the 128Kbps bit rate.
In most cases when the player has a bigger memory it's also bigger, some of the flash players include an expansion slot.

4. Supporting Formats:
In the digital world there are many formats to save sound files, some of the formats are standard in all the mp3 players but others will only be a part of certain companies. When your player supports a wide variety of formats than it'll be easier for you to get music without converting it first.

MP3: The most common version of compressed audio files
MPEG4: An advanced format for audio and video.
WAV/WAVE- Uncompressed audio format and that's why it takes more space
WMA: Considered as an MP3 format in most players
AIFF: High quality audio format, very similar to WAV.
AAC: Compressed audio format, very similar to mp3 but offers a better quality.
OGG: Compressed audio format, very high quality.
FLAC: Compressed audio format that is half the size of the original file and it's quality is almost as the original file. This format exists only in the Cowon iAudio players and Rio.

5. User interface
Buttons: There's a wide variety of buttons and touch screens, in the end it's up to the user and what his preference is.
Menus: Good Mp3 players offer a wide variety of menus and a better navigation system, erasing files directly from the player, creating playlists etc.
Screen: Most of the screens have an LCD that is between 0.5-2.5in, the newer ones like the iRiver clix have an OLED screen.
Voice recorder: You should check the quality of the recording and what is the optimal distance, also if you have a variety of recording qualities than you can record for longer periods of times like lectures.

6. FM Radio
Most of the mp3 players include an FM radio when most of them use the headphones as an antenna, if the radio is an important function than you should check it out.

I hope this was useful to you and that you enjoyed reading it, if you think this is helpful than please vote for it.

Thank you again