How To Buy An MP3 Player

"What MP3 player should I buy?"

Every week I see someone on a forum posting a variation on the "what MP3 player should I buy?" question. Which in itself is a variation on the "what TV/car/pet-monkey" question we all get asked from time to time. And in many cases, the person asking the question fails to elaborate on their requirements.

"So really, what MP3 player should I buy?"

Buy an iPod touch. They play music (very well as it happens). They sound good (if you use decent headphones and avoid low bitrates). You can use them to surf and tweet and play Angry Birds. They're easy to use. They look cool. And if you need massive capacity or music only, look at the classic/nano iPods. Are we done?

"But I don't want to be a clone / hate iTunes / need a removable battery / have to play some obscure format / want to be able to drag-and-drop directly onto the player"

Ok, now you're getting somewhere. Questions you should be asking:

• What are you going to use it for? Music? Videos? Internet? Apps?
• Do you need a dedicated music-playing gadget, or do you want music to be one of the things your smartphone does?
• What capacity? How big is your collection? How big will it be in two years' time? How much space do you want to leave for stuff that isn't music?
• Do you need gapless playback? If you listen to albums or remember ancient technologies like CD, then yes, this is something you want to consider. Very few players support gapless, so this might be something you'll have to compromise on. If all you'll ever do is shuffle or use your own playlists, you can probably live with the player inserting extra gaps between songs.
• What formats will you be playing? Do you have music/videos in obscure formats? Can you convert your files to something your player can handle (if your music is in lossless then yes, conversion is easy, otherwise this is an issue)? Can you be bothered converting to the best format for your player?
• Do you need to be able to manage it with direct folder access or otherwise have an irrational phobia of iTunes (or a perfectly rational fear of Sonic Stage)? Do you need to be able to manage it from multiple PCs? If your library is bigger than your player's capacity, managing what's on the player by direct file-copying only could be a challenge.
• What's your definition of "sound quality"? And will you be bringing the bitrate and headphones to get the best out of it?
• What about battery life? Will the normal battery-saving tricks of dimming the screen and turning off wi-fi be enough, or do you need to be able to swap-out the battery?
• How much do you want to spend?

Ok, now you can ask questions, determine the necessities and nice-to-haves, draw up a shortlist, and figure out what player works for you. Incidentally, for me, gapless playback was the dealbreaker that saw me buy players from Rio, Sony and Apple. And remember to budget for some decent headphones and a case, because these days you probably won't get much in the box (actually, I once got decent Sennheiser headphones and a dock bundled as standard with a player, but it was a Rio. And 2004).

"Not buying an iPod. The end."

OK, many people don't want an iPod, for understandable and not-so-understandable reasons. I've seen people claim that they won't entertain the prospect of an iPod touch because it's "an iPhone without the phone" rather than "a music player with touch screen, video, wi-fi, etc". Whatever, if "must not be player X regardless of how suitable it may be" is your number one requirement, at least you're narrowing your shortlist.

I'm not actually answering the question here. I'm not the one buying a new toy. But do think of your requirements before asking a very general question. Or just play safe and buy an iPod.