What to do with your online music files, once you have them?? You
could play them through your computer, nothing wrong with that now...
but it's not very cool, or an efficient use of something that you
could have spent an hour downloading. Why not do something more
exciting? Like take your music files with you, where ever you go?
Well, now you can.
MP3 players (or Portable Digital Music Players or PDMP to be more
precise) are based on computer sound cards with embeded memory for
file storage. Thay come in all shapes and sizes, and are beginning
to become quite popular , judging by the amount of new releases
in recent times. Initially, they could only play MP3 tracks, but
now we are seeing players that can play most types of OM file types,
or can be upgraded when new file types become available.
This section runs through some of the current models available.
It's not comprehensive, as new models are released all the time.
Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox. The
heavyweight of the portable PDMP world, the Jukebox is massive.
It's also aptly named: the player comes with a 6 gigabyte harddrive
built in. Considering that most PDMP's come with around 32/64 MEGAbytes
of memory, it's clear that the Jukebox is meant for those who want
to take their entire CD collection out on the road with them. It's
also very expensive, costing near £400.
Diamond Rio 600. Diamond
were the first company to release a commercial PDMP, with the Rio
300. Even when more started to appear on the market, it was still
the best around, for a long time. The Rio 600, is an upgraded version
of the 300 model. It boasts a curvy casing, more information on
the LCD and... erm that's it as far as improvements go. It has the
same amount of memory as the old model (a paltry 32 Mb), and still
connects to your computer through the slow paralell port connection.
It's one of the cheaper PDMP's available, at around £130,
but considering nearly every new player comes with at least twice
the amount of memory, for a price not that much above the Rio, that
price is not great...
The
heavyweight of the portable PDMP world, the Jukebox is massive.
It's also aptly named: the player comes with a 6 gigabyte harddrive
built in. Considering that most PDMP's come with around 32/64 MEGAbytes
of memory, it's clear that the Jukebox is meant for those who want
to take their entire CD collection out on the road with them. It's
also very expensive, costing near £400.
Diamond
were the first company to release a commercial PDMP, with the Rio
300. Even when more started to appear on the market, it was still
the best around, for a long time. The Rio 600, is an upgraded version
of the 300 model. It boasts a curvy casing, more information on
the LCD and... erm that's it as far as improvements go. It has the
same amount of memory as the old model (a paltry 32 Mb), and still
connects to your computer through the slow paralell port connection.
It's one of the cheaper PDMP's available, at around £130,
but considering nearly every new player comes with at least twice
the amount of memory, for a price not that much above the Rio, that
price is not great...