Getting A Handle On MP3 Players

Portable (MP3) music players are sure to be popular gifts this holiday season. These little handheld jukeboxes allow users to listen to near CD-quality music wherever they are. And unlike portable CD players, your musical selection isn't limited by the number of CDs you can carry around.

The number of songs you can store on portable music player depends on two things: the capacity of the player's memory (or hard drive) and the format that the songs are saved in. MP3 music files typically take up about a megabyte per minute of music, so a 64-megabyte MP3 player should allow for about an hour of music. Windows Media Format (WMA) files take about half that space, which means you'll get twice as many songs if you record in WMA format.

You transfer music from a PC or a Mac. You start by either downloading music or "ripping" (copying) music from CDs to your computer's hard drive. You then use a cable to copy the music from the PC to whatever MP3 player you have. The Apple iPod uses both FireWire and USB. Most other players use the fast USB 2.0 plugs on new PCs, but also work with the slower USB 1.1 jacks on older systems.

You can buy an MP3 player for as little as $60 but, for that price, you'll get between 32 and 64 megabytes of memory, which is certainly enough to record your favorite album or two. If you're willing to spend a bit more you can get a player with 128 megabytes, 256 megabytes or even 512 megabytes, but if you want lots of music, you're better off spending $200 or more for a player with a hard disk drive.

Personally, I'm sold on players with built-in hard drives because they are able to store thousands of songs. In fact, I have virtually my entire music collection stored on the players I've been testing, which means that I can listen to any song in my collection, wherever I happen to be. The 20-gigabyte drives in the systems I was using can store as many 5,000 MP3 songs or 10,000 WMA songs.

The Apple iPod is the best known of the hard drive-based MP3 players. Apple was early to the party with an excellent device that, originally, only worked with the Macintosh. The current crop of iPods also works with Microsoft Windows. There are three models: a 10 gigabyte (2,500 songs) at around $299, 20 GB for $399 and 40 GB for $499. Apple works only with MP3 and the MP4 "Advanced Audio Coding" format that's used by Apple's iTunes music store. It will not play WMA files, which means you can't use it with music you download from Napster, Pressplay or other legal music services. Music downloaded from unauthorized services like Kazaa and Morpheus can be played on almost any device.

The success of iPod has inspired numerous competitive products, including an excellent offering from Dell and RioAudio.

I liked the first generation iPod, loved the second generation, but am not so fond of Apple's current crop of music players. In an effort to make the iPod thinner and lighter, Apple reduced the size and capacity of the battery. Its touch-sensitive controls, while very high tech, are actually a bit too sensitive. I find myself accidentally selecting songs with it. Still, the iPod remains an elegant way to listen to music that you rip from CDs or download from Apple's iTunes store for 99 cents a song.

At 7.6 ounces, the Dell Digital JukeBox (DJ) is a bit heavier and larger than the 5.6 ounce iPod, but the controls on the Dell are easy to use. With a "home" button that takes you to the main menu and a browser-like back button to return you to your previous menu, it has the best interface of any device I've tested. The DJ comes in both 15 gigabyte ($249) and 20 GB ($329) capacities.

Transferring music from the PC to the DJ is also easy. You connect it to the PC through a high-speed USB 2.0 port (older PCs have a slower though still compatible USB 1.1 port, but you can upgrade your USB port with most desktop PCs).

The DJ comes with a version of MusicMatch that lets you synchronize the music on your PC with your DJ, but there is one catch. The version I tested copies the songs in alphabetical order rather than the order they appear on the album. Although I do sometimes skip around, I generally prefer listening to songs in the order that the artist intended. Dell says it's an issue with MusicMatch and says that a fix will be available by the end of this month. There are some workarounds, including using Windows Media Player to copy your music instead of MusicMatch.

I'm actually a bit more impressed with the Rio Karma, a 20-GB unit that sells for $349. At 5.5 ounces, it's a bit lighter and smaller (though thicker) than the Dell DJ. The Rio Music Manager software does a flawless job of transferring songs to the device-in the correct order. The Rio, like the DJ and most other portable players, also works with Windows Media Player.

Even though it's a bit thick, it fits nicely in the hand. The USB 2.0 adapter assures very fast transfers of files from the PC. As with the Dell, you can also add and edit play lists, which isn't the case with the Apple iPod. The Karma comes with a very nice docking station that also has RCA outputs, making it a cinch to connect to a home stereo system. There is also an Ethernet connector allowing you to transfer files over a local area network.

The user interface is, for the most part, good. There is both a thumb wheel and small joystick for selecting songs. The only thing missing is a back button to take you back to a previous menu selection, which makes it a wee bit trickier but far from impossible, to find another selection from an album that's playing. At $349, it's $50 cheaper than the equivalent iPod and just slightly more expensive than the Dell DJ, but I've seen it online for as little as $275, an attractive price for such a full-featured player.

Both the Dell and Rio devices will run for about 15 hours on a single charge, while the new iPods start to peter out after 6 to eight hours of use.

By Larry Magid