Basic MP3 Player Features

MP3 players work in a different way to all other types of personal stereo because you don't insert cassettes or CDs. Although they all work in pretty much the same way, there are important feature differences between different models.

Battery Life

The battery life of MP3 players is short compared with the average for other portable music formats, and is typically around ten hours, although some will play for up to 24 hours. Fortunately, with most models, you can recharge the batteries without removing them.

Storage

MP3 players come in two main types - hard disk and solid state.

The larger capacity players use a hard disk for storage, like a PC does. They tend to be larger and bulkier than solid-state players, but you can fit more music on to them. The most impressive models can carry around 40,000 songs - or about 4,000 albums. You can also use many of these players to transfer other large (non-music) files between computers, and many will also display photos or even video.

Solid-state players may use a removable memory card to store tracks. Using a memory card means the players can be incredibly small and light, but you can't store a huge number of songs on them. A 64Mb memory card will hold roughly an hour of music.

In addition, there are some solid-state players that rely on built-in memory (flash), not memory cards. These players can be smaller still. Sony even has one that's built into a pair of headphones.

Connection Type

You connect your MP3 player to a computer via either a USB or a Firewire connection. A Firewire connection will transfer music at about twice the speed of a standard USB connection. However, the newer USB 2.0 standard is almost the same speed as Firewire. Many PCs don't have Firewire, but you can buy a Firewire card for about £20 and insert it in the PCI slot. Modern Apple Macs have Firewire as standard but, unfortunately, you can't add it to older Macs that don't have it. Some older players used serial ports to connect to your computer, but these should be avoided as transfer rates are slow.

Some MP3 players let you record directly to them. All you will need is the right sort of lead to connect the player to your stereo or other audio source.