h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Are MP3 players really worth the money? I mean,surely people can just download the music from the net, and listen to it on their own computer, rather than having a player to take it around with you. Okay, people might want music on the move, but in this case, what are personal CD players all about, walkmans, and now Minidiscs. Please can someone reply. Thanks,

Sunriser

I have a Rio 500 MP3 player, and I have t' say I'm very happy with it... it's USB, and has 64Mb of RAM, so I can transfer a good chunk of my MP3 collection to it before going anywhere. I rarely leave home without it...

However, MP3 players aren't for everyone. First off, you need to be into computers, so that you'll be able to download MP3s, rip them from CDs, etc. You'll need about a gig of free hard disk space, minimum. Minidisks will allow you to store more music if you don't have constant access to a computer, so that's important too.

Basically, if you think MP3 players are immensely cool, you'll get a lot of use out of one. If you don't see what the fuss is about, don't bother.

Oh, and do go for one with at least 64Mb of RAM - 32Mb only allows you to store half an hour of music, which isn't a lot. For standard quality MP3s, it's about one meg for a minute of music.

USB transfer is also well worthwhile if your computer can cope with it - it means you can send songs to the MP3 player in a matter of seconds instead of the best part of a minute.

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