Since SONICblue released the first Rio player in 1998, MP3 players have been perhaps the largest trend in personal music in America. The reasons to choose MP3 players are as varied as the people who use them.
Junior Stacey Keller owns a light-weight, skip-free, RAM-based MP3 player for working out.
"I use it when I'm running and stuff," she said. "To run with a CD player is ridiculous."
Today, there are several types of MP3 players to choose from, each with advantages and disadvantages compared to the others.
RAM-based players
Like the original Rio 300, these players hold a comparatively small amount of music. However, they are relatively inexpensive, usually very small, and never skip. They generally range in price from $70 to $250, and hold between one and six hours of music. Some, like the SONICblue psa play 60, weigh as little as 2.7 ounces. Others, such as the e.Digital Odyssey 200, include FM radio. Expect battery life of around 10 hours.
MP3 CD-based players
These players typically play traditional audio CDs as well as CDs that contain MP3s, and some, such as SONICblue's RioVolt SP250, even have have built-in radios. Although bulkier and more likely to skip than RAM-based players, they can hold about 20 hours of music, and batteries last longer. SONICblue claims their players last up to 15 hours on a charge; Sony claims their new MP3-compatible WalkMan can play MP3s for 24 hours.
However, in order create a new playlist or add new music, the user has to burn a new CD. This takes time and requires a CD-burner. Average cost is around $100.
Hard drive-based players
Instead of RAM or CDs, these players store music on the same type of hard drives found in laptop computers. Ranging in capacity from 5 GB to 40 GB, these digital music devices hold literally thousands of songs, enough to play continuously for days. For most people, one of these players can hold their entire music library. Batteries last about 10 hours. Because these players are basically hard drives in a case, they can also be used to carry around important files. The main downside is cost; they range from just under $200 to $500.
Apple's critically-acclaimed iPod is perhaps the best-known of these types of players. When it arrived on the scene, the competing Archos Jukebox and RioRiot were bulky and heavy, while the iPod was about the size and weight of a deck of cards. Also, the iPod uses FireWire to copy music from a computer, which is much faster than the USB connection used by the competition. Apple recently released an iPod that works with Windows computers.
However, competition is catching up with look-alike products such as the e.Digital Odyssey 1000 that use the same small Toshiba hard drive as the iPod. The Odyssey is cheaper than the iPod at any given size, and includes a radio and the ability to record sounds and control the device by voice. The Odyssey and several other new hard drive-based players copy music from computers over USB 2, which is similar in speed to FireWire.
Although reviewers for publications as diverse as The New York Times and Popular Science have declared hard drive-based players king, the reality is that different types of players are better for different applications. Each potential customer has to judge what they need in terms of price, size and flexibility.
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