MP3 Players, An Introduction

Time to release your music on an MP3 player which are also known as MP4 players. The clever random mode on an MP3 player shuffles up your songs, playing them randomly. You can also store all your songs on a player small enough to fit in your pocket. But where does your MP3 player hold all your music?

The first iPods, which made MP3 players popular worldwide, had inbuilt hard drive to store music. Hard drives give an MP3 player lots of memory to store files. For example both Apple and Archos have MP3 players with hard drives that have 160GB capacity. MP3 players that use hard drives are much heavier, more bulky and also use more energy than those that don\’t.

More recently MP3 player manufactures have started using flash memory to replace mini hard drives. There are now very few MP3 players that use hard drives. Instead they have an inbuilt flash memory chip and often have a slot to hold a second flash memory card, thereby increasing the player\’s memory.

Flash memory players have several advantages, they can be much smaller and lighter. Flash memory uses much less power than a hard drive, so batteries last longer. The player can also access your files more quickly from flash memory than from a hard drive.

Flash memory does have some disadvantages though. The storage capacity is significantly smaller than a hard drive, typically between 8GB – 16GB. The price for additional SD cards can be expensive.

MP3 players can do more than just play music. Most of them have LCD color displays ranging from a very small 1.8 inch to much larger 4.3 inch or 5 inch,. ONDA and Archos even produce MP3 players that have a 7 inch screen. This has changed the scope of MP3 players from just listing to music, to being able to watch videos too. While watching feature film on small screen may be a strain on the eyes, the larger screens are ideal.

Learn more about MP4 players. Stop by David Morris\’s site where you can find out all about anMP4 player and what it can do for you.