Every music lover sooner or later comes to the conclusion that he needs to purchase an MP3-player. Many will say that mobile phones overshadowed these products, but this is not the case. Very often, a smartphone simply does not have enough power to play music normally on the subway or minibus, and the sound quality itself leaves much to be desired. Therefore, even cheap players have a higher quality melody playback than phones.
Among other things, it’s very convenient to have a mobile device with you for listening to music, the charge lasts much longer than on the phone, and if it sits down, you can not worry that you will miss some important call. But you need to try to choose a high-quality MP3 player, the price of which will be below the average level (the cost of the simplest models starts from 1.5 thousand rubles).
Type of player
You can distinguish MP3 players by different criteria, but in the case of cheap models, the main difference is where the music files are saved. They can be located on the built-in hard drive or on a flash drive (according to the principle of a conventional flash drive).
The hard drive, as a rule, has a significantly larger capacity, but the cost will also be higher. As for reliability, the HDD players are less reliable with the HDD, as they can easily fail if dropped. According to these reasons, in recent years it has become increasingly difficult to find cheap hard disk players on store shelves.
To date, MP3 players with flash memory are sold in all stores, their price is very affordable, almost every music lover can afford to buy. A few years ago they were not very popular due to the support of small flash drives, now the maximum memory capacity can be far beyond 100 GB.
Memory size
Separately, we can note the MP3 player "Samsung". Models of this company have both HDD and flash drives. The best option would be a player with support for 4 or 8 GB of memory cards. This is more than enough for a good collection of your favorite music.
If the Samsung MP3 player has integrated memory, then the price immediately rises noticeably (the cost of some items can go up to 30-40 thousand rubles). Already there are models that have more than 100 GB of memory. If you look from the technical side, then this is undoubtedly the progress of the developers. However, for ordinary consumers, few people need so much memory.
To understand how many songs fit on a certain amount of memory, you can make simple calculations. Data is calculated from an average size of 5 MB per song and -10% of the total memory for system files:
- 4 Gb - 900 songs;
- 8 Gb - 1 800 songs;
- 16 Gb - 3,600 songs;
- 64 Gb - 14,400 songs;
- 128 Gb - 28,800 songs.
Next, each person must decide how much memory is needed for the normal use of the MP3 player.
Display
In this category, players are divided into three types: without display, with display, with touch screen. A touch screen is only available in expensive models, but this does not mean that this is a big plus. The MP3 player should be small - manufacturers know this and make tiny players with a small touch screen. This leads to the fact that a person cannot normally use the player, because getting into the right part of the small screen with a finger is quite difficult.
Basically, cheap MP3 players do with small conventional displays or without them at all. In the latter case, this means that it is simply not needed. There are all the necessary control buttons, and the battery holds much longer, since energy is not used up on the screen.
Take, for example, the Apple iPod Shuffle 4. The model went on sale many years ago, but it is increasingly bought and is gaining popularity, although there is no display at all. Reliability and relatively low price, in comparison with other products of this company, pleasantly pleases consumers.
Source of power
All electrical appliances must take energy from somewhere, from which they will be powered. There are several power sources:
- Removable batteries. They can be charged from the mains.
- Built-in battery. There is also the possibility of charging the device from the network, but a special power supply is needed, usually sold complete with a player.
- AA or AAA batteries.
Making a specific choice of power source is quite difficult - they are all good, but they have some disadvantages. Removable batteries hold a good enough charge, and in case of failure they can be replaced. But if a person is often on the road, it will not always be possible to find a network to recharge the batteries.
Built-in batteries have even greater capacity: depending on the manufacturer of the gadget, the charge can last from 50 to 100 hours of continuous play at medium volume. But there is one big minus in the built-in battery: if it fails, you will have to buy a new MP3 player. The manufacturer does not provide for the repair of devices in this case.
Conventional batteries are also quite good in the sense that they can always be replaced. They are sold in any store, but they hold a charge worse than all other models. Therefore, each has its own priorities, and it is necessary to choose what is more suitable in terms of individual needs. But technically, the best option is a player with a built-in battery.
Additional functions
Basically, cheap players have a standard set of functions: FM-radio, voice recorder and directly listening to music. More expensive models have a Wi-Fi function. In this case, you can download your favorite songs without resorting to using a computer. A fairly useful feature, especially for those who are on permanent business trips.
Conclusion
In today's world it’s hard to imagine a young man who does not like music, so almost every boy or girl has a personal MP3 player. The price for them can be very different, it all depends on many technical factors and the manufacturer's company. The most popular manufacturers of inexpensive models of MP3-players are: Samsung, Transcend, Texet. All of them are good and reliable in their own way.
Choosing cheap players, you need to build on the conditions under which the device will be used. Is it needed for short trips to work or long-term use? Is there a need for a display or is it not needed and will only interfere - you decide. Cheap does not mean bad, so you need to choose exactly what suits a particular person.