Compare mp3 players

User-Unfriendly MP3 Hardware

At first blush, you can't ignore the wow factor with MP3 players. The advantages of digital music - convenience, instant-on, fast-forward and rewind, and so forth - make cassette players seem so eighties. But as revolutionary as MP3 players are, cost has remained an issue. The average price of MP3 players is still in the stratosphere, hovering between $250 and $300. These devices won't reach mainstream acceptance until they offer 64MB of storage for $150 - or less.

So before you run out and spend your hard-earned dollars, here are a few things we're still hoping to see from MP3 players that may help the hype live up to the hope, and a few ongoing problems we would like to see remedied. Keep these issues in mind before you press the buy button.

Transfer time is a bigger factor than you'd think. The transfer times we've seen have ranged from acceptable to pathetic. You want a player with 64MB of memory, but if it takes you 10 minutes to change songs - well, that's just a delay you don't really need or want.

We downloaded Yo La Tengo's "The Last Days of Disco,"; a 4.4MB, 6-minute 28-second MP3 file, onto several different players. The Compaq iPAQ Personal Audio Player PA-1 made the download so slow as to be almost not worth the wait, taking 55 seconds to download this one song file.

On the other hand, we were jazzed by the speeds seen in Microsoft Windows CE devices, and surprisingly enough, the Good Technology SoundsGood AudioPlayer, a Springboard module (which downloaded the exact same file in just 18 seconds).

One other thing about USB is disconcerting: Why aren't Macintosh computers supported more frequently? There are millions of Mac computers out there with USB ports. Why can't they use the Compaq unit, the Philips Rush, or the RCA/Thomson Lyra?

PDAness

The first generation of MP3 players we looked at had neat-sounding PDA functionality built in. You could store your phone book and even ordinary computer files on them. Does anyone actually use this? Why would you waste the most expensive storage space available on something like your phone book? This silly feature probably adds to the cost of the device (though admittedly not much), but it definitely makes these things harder to use.

FM radio tuners have been cropping up with increasing frequency, and they are a great asset to your device. People want to replace their bulky, skip-prone CD players (or worse yet, cassette players) with tiny, much more convenient MP3 players. Radio functionality makes these devices much more familiar to us; now you'll have no trouble leaving the old player at home.

Software Compatibility

Despite the claims of the major jukebox software companies, you are virtually guaranteed to encounter compatibility issues. The major programs - MusicMatch Jukebox, RealJukebox, and Windows Media Player - support the Rio line (in fact nearly every jukebox program does), but if you own a Creative Nomad Jukebox, a Lyra, or a Sensory Science raveMP, you'll encounter trouble.

The SoundsGood AudioPlayer embodies fast file transfers, but when selecting files to move onto your player, you are presented with a list of all the MP3 files on your hard drive. If you're into MP3 technology (and if you're considering buying one of these expensivebut-cool devices then you are), you've got megabytes if not gigabytes of files. Try sorting through that list to find the one Radiohead song you want. The program lets you drag and drop files, of course, but this just isn't the easiest way to approach the issue.

In addition, while most software programs support some form of ID3 tag info (for title and track data), most hardware players do not.

MMM--Memory Chips

We're not talking just about SmartMedia versus CompactFlash anymore. You'll find numerous competing solutions to solve the storage problem. SmartMedia is by far the most prevalent form of storage on MP3 devices, though CompactFlash has much more penetration in the digital camera market. So much for using the same expensive card for both purposes, huh?

While these two duke it out, there are other solutions. From Iomega Clik! Drives to MultiMediaCards to CD-based devices, how do you decide what to get? This market is cluttered, to say the least. But since you probably won't be buying additional, expensive storage anytime soon, don't worry.

Hard drive - based products such as the Nomad Jukebox let you store hundreds of songs in one semiconvenient, CD player - size product: harder on the pocket but great in terms of capacity and ease of use. The big deterrent once again is cost.

What do you do? Buy or not buy? The convenience of these devices can't be overlooked. Compare MP3 players with portable CD players and you'll see that MP3 devices aren't all that bad. But this is such a volatile market that the next generation will certainly take us all by surprise. For the time being, we suspect that MP3 players will remain the province of optimistic early adopters.