Flash MP3 Player

Choosing a good portable music player has never been so complicated. There is an absolutely vast array of portable music players available, from the ultra-tiny to those that can store every song you've ever owned in your life. Nowadays, when you're talking about portable music players, you are most often going to be referring to MP3 players.

Even in the category of MP3 players there are distinctions. For instance, there are hard-drive-based MP3 players and flash-based MP3 players. Flash MP3 players are actually the first type to be developed, and despite some of their drawbacks, they still hold some distinct advantages over their newer brethren.

Perhaps the biggest advantage that a flash MP3 player has over its hard drive cousins is that there are physically moving parts inside. This means that a flash MP3 player is going to be extremely resistant to play interruption. There's simply nothing within the device to get "jolted" off its track. This makes flash MP3 players ideal for use in sports and other vigorous activities.

Perhaps the only downside to a flash MP3 player is its storage capacity. Most flash MP3 players are somewhere in the 32 MB to 1 GB range, and in fact they absolutely top out at 2 GB. 2 GB is still ample storage space for many occasions, and a flash player's extremely long battery life helps even out the playing field. Additionally, you can find flash MP3 players that allow you to make digital voice recordings so that the unit doubles as a note-taking recorder.