FIRST TIME BUYER'S GUIDE
Portable MP3 players
I Want My MP3
By Michelle Silver
My first introduction to all things MP3 was seeing the name
splashed across newspaper headlines, next to things like
“piracy,” “stealing” and “Metallica prepares to sue.” So I knew
MP3s were worthy of
attention. I just didn’t
know what they were, or
why I’d want my own
MP3 player. That’s when I
started exploring—and
realizing that, even with
out all the controversy,
these electronic devices
are quite cool. Here’s
what I found out.
The basics
MP3 is an online
music file format that
allows for major file com
pression, making it easy
to distribute music over
the Net at a rapid-fire
pace. This means you can
browse thousands of
music choices, and then
mix and customize all
your own soundtracks (so
Rio PMP 600 ($169.95)
you can put Talking Heads and Mozart together). It also means—
and here’s the controversial part—that, for better or worse, music
can be sent all over the world without agents, music companies or
record labels stepping in (for more info, go to thesourcesite.com)
[Why MP3 players rule
The quality of the sound is comparable to listening to a CD, and
it downloads on the fly. An MP3 file takes less than 5 minutes per
song to download. Plus, they’re the perfect portable. Not only are
they small (smaller than a Walkman), but there are no movable parts,
so music won’t skip when you play it. In fact, one owner raved “The
first day I bought it, I dropped it accidentally 8 times and it still
works fine.” (Why he dropped it 8 times I don’t know.) For more
reviews, check out productopia.com. Many also offer built-in micro
phones and phone book capability—and will probably become more
and more like PDAs.
lA few bummers
Depending on memory size, you can run out of space pretty fast
when you download files onto your player. You can, however, always
add more memory cards to your player, or, dump MP3 files back onto
your desktop computer and then transfer them to CD (Visit
beyond.com/features/mp3/portable).
Shelling out the bucks
MP3 players tend to run from $100 to $800 (most fall between
$100 to $200). If you’re paying over $300, you’d better have a
good reason. Features to consider when shopping:
Steamtunnels digs...
RFC jazPiper iMV32U ($229)
This inexpensive player has a voice memo recorder and capabili
ty to store phone numbers. It’s expandable to only 64 meg, but
still lets you get plenty of music on there.
Rio 500 ($269)
Stores up to 2 hours of digital-quality music and up to 32
hours of spoken audio. This is also the first portable digital
audio player to support both the Mac and Windows.
Saehan MPMan ($249)
Good sound quality that includes option for bass enhancement.
Can also hold other files in addition to music, such as doc, gif,
etc. And comes with parallel port cable, headphones and carry
ing case.
Creative Nomad jukebox ($499)
Yes, this baby is far more expensive, but it offers 6GB of memo
ry and can hold approximately 2,000 songs. The Nomad may
have most storage space of all MP3 players.
• Platform determines whether the players will be compatible with
Windows-based PC, Mac or both
• FM Stereo (speaks for itself)
• Internal Memory. Typically, players hold 16 or 32MB. More
advanced come with 64MB (although you can add memory cards
to almost all players). More memory means more music.
• Phone book. Allows you to store thousands of phone numbers.
• Built-in microphone. So you can record thoughts, ideas, latest
top-40 smash hit, etc. •
For complete pricing information, and a comparison guide to all
portable MP3 players, go to steamtunnels.net and use keyword
“portable MP3.”
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