Mp3 faq - portable MP3 player

Which portable MP3 player should I get?

Well, I can't really answer this question. I don't have one myself yet. I'm holding out for the players which play MP3 from CD which are supposed to be coming out. Supposedly they will double as a regular CD "Diskman" type player, and also play CDR disks containing MP3 files in standard data CD format. Of course, these players will have a couple of disadvantages over pure RAM based MP3 players: they will have moving parts, they will be a bit bigger, and they will be susceptible (like a regular Diskman) to shocks, and so less suitable for jogging etc. But they will have some enormous advantages (for me, anyhow) - ease of transfer (instead of mucking around with cables, just put in an MP3 CDR - and I already make MP3 CDR disks anyway), and holding 8 hours of good quality music rather than 1 hour of rather poor quality music. Of course the snag is, such a beast doesn't exist yet. Pine have supposedly produced one, and managed to get it reviewed in several magazines, but it isn'
t actually released yet (see their site at www.pineusa.com). There's another company that has a similar unit, also "coming soon" - check out Vertical Horizons at www.evhi.com. And here's yet another one: www.mambox.com/. And several other companies have been talking about something similar.

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