The Bottom Line Quite a few developments have occurred since I've written my two how to choose an MP3 player and CD-MP3 player essays. Time to reevaluate the market!
MP3 player technology has become cheaper with new products and breakthroughs on the horizon. Time to reevaluate the market and consider whether it's time to wait for the new technology or is it okay to buy now?
There are several products already out in the market and quite a few just on the horizon as well as a few new technologies that we have high hopes for.
Recently, we are seeing more combinations units in the market like digital cameras with a MP3 player (Kodak's mc3 and Fuji's FinePix 4700), PDA's (Pocket PCs and Sony's CLIE-N710), and cellular phones (Samsung's recent offerrings.) There are still more on the horizon. For the most part, there are alot of advantages to combination units... like the fact that you only have to carry one device instead of multiple popular devices. Many people carry cellular phones and PDAs these days... why burden yourself with multiple devices?
The pros of combination devices also include overall cheaper cost of ownership... you may pay more for the single combination device but it's still cheaper than buying all the individual units. Second, you don't have to fiddle around with different memory formats of various devices since you only have one device to worry about.
Honestly, there are disadvantages to these combination devices... I personally felt that many of these combination devices were sometimes hard to use (Sony CLIE-N710 Palm MP3 software) or didn't perform well in their multiple personalities (Kodak's mc3). It is the price that you can pay for having a combination player. Discriminating users can very well be unhappy with the performance of these all-in-one devices. Other disadvantages that have cropped up include loss of functionality (Samsung's cell phone/MP3 player has a fixed amount of memory for MP3 storage) and confusing control layouts. My quick takes on some of these devices...
Fuji's FinePix 4700 does a decent job as both a digital camera and MP3 player... will likely make most users satisfied.
Kodak's mc3 is great as an all-in-one toy but that's it... it really excels at none of its functions.
Sony's CLIE-N710 is a great device but it tries to do too much with too little. The 8MB of internal memory and the included 8MB memory stick limit an otherwise promising product! Even if you purchase a larger memory card, the 8MB of internal memory causes you to choose exactly what the Sony CLIE-N710 must be one or two of the following instead of the unit being interchangable between PDA, MP3, and video viewer.
Samsung's Uproar cell phone/MP3 combo works as a good cell phone but is still limited on the MP3 player end. It is a very good product but may be too limited for some users due to the unexpandable memory size of 64MB.
Other trends... MP3 flash memory players are becoming smaller and memory cards are currently at rock bottom prices. Look at the RCA Kazoo MP3 players and even some of the upcoming Samsung Yepp players... heck even the SD Panasonic players are absolutely the tiniest unit out on the market these days. The Kazoo is a 2 x 2 x 1 inch player! It has 32 MB of internal memory and accomodates MMC cards up to 96MB. One Panasonic SD unit is a set of headphones with an SD slot on the headphones itself for MP3 playing. The Rio 800, Nomad II MG, and Intel Pocket Concert units look like giants in comparison. Prices have still been spiralling downwards as competition continues to appear on the MP3 market.
Memory card prices are hitting all time lows! Look at the price of SmartMedia cards... at the beginning of the year, the lowest price for a 64MB SM card that I could find was $55. Now, the prices are as low as $34 for a 64 MB SM card. MultiMedia Card (MMC) media is also being picked up as a standard these days... and the media has slowly started dipping in price. A 64 MB MMC card was close to $120-140 at the beginning of the year. Now you can find prices as low as $75 for a 64 MB MMC card with relatively little difficulty. Even SonicBlue's propriatary Rio Backpacks have come under pricing pressures due to this competition! These pricing pressures make many older but high quality and reliable players much more attractive buys as well as spur the development of smaller MP3 units with smaller sized media (like MMC and SD).
MP3 players have more function that ever before... look at the iRock MP3 player. Ever wanted Karoke? Well, the iRock unit has it... It even stores your great (or should I say worse) performance of your favorite MP3 songs and plays it back to you... over and over again!
What's on the horizon?
Competing audio formats like WMA, AAC, and even the new MP3Pro format offer better compression with less loss of audio quality. WMA and AAC are fairly widely accepted. The MP3Pro format has been heard of but just released. Some people has issues with the quality of MP3s... but with these new standards and future upgrades, how long will that be a factor?
Smaller CD-MP3 players... remember the 3 inch CD format. Phillips eXpandium 401 unit and an upcoming Compaq iPaq CD-MP3 player will use only this smaller 3 inch CDs for MP3 playback. The smaller discs obviously hold less data than a standard sized CD-R/RW but the difference in the player size may justifiy it. CD-MP3 players won't be bulky for long!
Smaller hard drive unit MP3 players... ready for this? The Creative Nomad Pocket Jukebox! Holding between 6 to 10 Gigs of space but still portable in your pocket! The newest Nomad Jukebox will have all the features of its older predecesor but takes up less than half the space. Is your mouth watering at this thought... here's another tidbit on it... the price is rumored to be in the $399 or less range!
The DataPlay disc technology... what's about the size of a nickel and holds 500MB of data. The DataPlay disc... a new storage medium that is not currently out yet but looks very promising. A medium that is not much bigger than current MMC cards but holds 8-9 times the data can fit into any number of MP3 player designs as well as other equipment... it may even lead to better combination device as well. There are a few question on this new medium such as the size of the reading and writing equipment, the speed of the drive, and the cost of the device (which is rumored to be low... but nothing concrete to date).
It's nice that you're writing all of this, but how does it help me in purchasing a MP3 player?!
Well, if you're not set in getting a MP3 player, then it helps to know what is already out there and what is coming out soon. The size of players and the amount of storage on the players are huge factors... as well as the overall portability and cost of memory upgrades. If you're not set in getting a player now, it may pay to wait a few more months to see current player prices drop and to play with the newer models of MP3 players that are about to come out. You all have an idea of what you want out of your MP3 player, so you need to know what is out there and how well they fit your desires in a MP3 player. MP3 players have definitely come a long way, but they're not for everyone and the best is still yet to come!
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