Portable Music / MP3 Players

Your most important decision...

is how long you want to be able to listen to music for, without running out of battery power, and without listening to the same songs over and over.

Portable music players have two types of storage: flash memory or hard disk.

Hard disk based players generally can store a lot more songs than memory-based players, but they are also more expensive, bigger, heavier, more fragile, and use more battery power.

The question you need to ask yourself is "Do I really need access to 5000 songs while jogging around for 45 minutes?" Most people who store their music on their computer, and just need a portable unit for that 1-hour commute or exercise session, would be better off buying a tiny inexpensive player, rather than a $300 iPod. Oh, I forgot - there's the style factor.

Anyway, here's what we recommend:

• Apple iPod
  Incorporating the fabulous Apple Click Wheel that was first introduced on iPod mini. Offering up to 12 hours of battery life. Weighing in at just 5.3 ounces. And getting slightly thinner with each new generation. iPod continues to define the perfect digital music player for Mac and Windows.
  

• Apple iPod Mini
  iPod mini lets you bring along enough music for a three-day weekend getaway in a package so small you’ll forget you’re carrying it. Until people ask you about it, that is.
  

• Apple iPod Shuffle
  iPod shuffle weighs as little as a car key and makes a tuneful fashion statement. Just throw the included lanyard around your neck and take a walk. Or run. Or ride. There's nowhere your skip-free iPod shuffle can't go, and with up to 12 hours of continuous playback time, it keeps going as long as you do.
  

• Creative MuVo Micro N200
  Weighing just a little more than an ounce, the incredibly thin Creative Muvo Micro N200 packs a lot of features into its small package. In addition to multiformat digital audio playback--both MP3 and WMA--the Micro N200 also offers an FM radio, voice recorder, and line-in recording capability.
  

• Creative Zen Micro MP3 Player
  The Zen Micro digital music player from Creative Labs packs an incredible 5 GB of storage capacity into a shell small enough to sit comfortably in your jeans pocket. It also rides nicely in your hand, with a palm-fitting profile and thumb-friendly front-panel controls.
  

• Rio Carbon MP3 Player
  The Rio Carbon is capable of holding up to 80 hours of MP3 (160 hours WMA) music, and with up to 20 hours of battery life on a single charge, music lovers need not worry about running out of juice.
  

Anything we're missing? Let us know.

Talk about this topic in the discussion forums.