How to choose a mobile entertainment player

It's no longer good enough these days for an MP3 player to simply play it straight with digital music files. Increasingly, more media features are being added, from video to photo viewing, to FM radio and even games. So much so, this has created a whole new category of portable entertainment players. To keep you preoccupied on those long commutes, what should you go for: A dedicated music machine or a multimedia maven? These and more answers right here.

Your playing requirements

Know your storage:
Hard drive:
If capacity is your chief concern when it comes to selecting a player, hard drives can hold a luxurious amount of music, photos, videos, ebooks and text. This storage medium can run up to a massive 160GB which, as a rough guide, works out to up to 200 movies, 150,000 photos, 100,000 songs or 250,000 e-books. Hard drives are still significantly cheaper than flash memory in terms of price per gigabyte. The tradeoff: They are usually 1.8-inch drives and thus not light or small. They have moving parts, which mean they can be damaged by shock, severe magnetic fields and being left out in the sun for too long.

Microdrive:
Microdrives used to straddle the middle ground between the hard drive and flash player, offering a good compromise of a larger-than-flash-memory storage in a small form factor. However, with lower prices and higher capacities in flash memory technology, the Microdrive category is slowly shrinking. Not to mention that like their hard drive cousins, Microdrives have moving parts that limit physical activities such as jogging.

Flash:
This solid state memory medium has now become the default storage option for most MP3 players. It has no moving parts, is known for lower battery consumption, shockproof and durability, and is ultracompact in size. Some flash players now even offer expandable memory slots. The storage capacity sweet spot is currently 32GB, but it comes at a price significantly above the hard drive version.

Multimedia vs. music:
Multimedia and music players appear to be converging. But there are enough differences for now to offer choices.

Multimedia:
Portable entertainment players are sometimes also known as portable media players, portable video players or even video jukeboxes. If this is the type of player you're seeking, look for one that supports as many audio and video formats as possible. This reduces the need to have to convert your audio and video clips for your player which can sometimes be a big hassle. Since you'll likely use the screen a great deal to playback those videos or to view your photos, ensure the LCD screen is large with brilliant colors. Although take heed that big LCD panels are battery draining and add to your player's weight and size.

Music:
If it's a player you want simply for music playback, the same rule applies in ensuring that it supports the audio formats your existing library is encoded with, which could range from WMA to MP3, to OGG and AAC. The more basic, low-end music players have no screen, while the higher-end models may have displays that are either in color, monochrome or the less power-hungry OLED. A screen is useful to display album art, JPEG images and even playback video, though the screen is usually too small for full-blown or extended movie viewing.

Other features:
With an ever-widening array of functions being added, here are some key extras to consider whether you're getting a multimedia or music player.

• Radio & TV tuners: Many players offer FM radio reception, although they're more common on flash devices which don't have spinning hard drives that can interfere with the radio signal. If you are looking at a player with a built-in radio tuner, look for memory presets so you're not left channel surfing manually. Onboard TV tuners are less common, but can be found mostly on portable media players.
• Connectivity: Although wireless functionality is still in the up-and-coming stages, it lets users share songs with each other over the airwaves or to download music wirelessly. Most players, however, have USB serial interfaces or even FireWire to allow for a simple connection to a PC for transfer of data and songs.
• A2DP Bluetooth: This is useful if you want to pair your player with compatible wireless headphones for cord-free listening.
• Voice recording: Some players have a small internal microphone for recording the spoken word. These are acceptable for documenting a lecture, a meeting, or a conversation but aren't suitable for high-quality music recording. The sampling rate is typically low and the recordings are mono. The upside is that you can usually record several hours of memos, then upload the files to your PC for attaching to emails or archiving.
• PIM: Some players can accept phonebooks and schedules. These features tend to be limited and, for most, won't replace a handheld.
• Sound-tweaking options: Since people have individual sonic preferences, customizable EQ setting (the more bands, the better; five is the norm), as well as the standard presets (Rock, Jazz, Bass Boost, and so on) can meet those needs. In terms of spatial enhancers, digital signal processing (DSP) and features such as SRS Wow can make music coming through headphones sound like it's bouncing around a large room.
• Advanced playback features: Just about every player offers shuffle, repeat, resume, and playlist functions. Newer models, however, may offer the ability to create on-the-fly playlists sans a computer, smart playlists that can serve up whatever you fancy, automatic cross-fading that adds smooth transitions between songs, automatic volume control which makes all songs equally loud; and other cool artificial intelligence modes.
• Battery life: Most flash-based players (and some hard drive-based models) come with non-removable Lithium-ion batteries, which typically last two to four years and can give more than 20 hours of playback, depending on size and number of features. Check out the claimed playback times. There are some players, usually flash-based ones, which are powered by standard AA or AAA batteries. The more features, the more the battery drain.
• Headsets: There's not much point having a high-fidelity digital audio device if you're listening to it with awful headphones or earphones. Bundled headphones are often lousy, in which case add the cost of a good pair to your budget. Some headphones come with remote controls built into the cable.
• Video-out: Some manufacturers of portable video players now supply accessories that'll help you port the video content out to a TV.
• Aesthetics: Finally, there's the design to consider. Sometimes it's the looks and style that justify forking out the extra dough. With MP3 and multimedia players now offering a gamut of designs and colors, you should be spoilt for choice.

Your budget

Features are all very well to have, but take heed that the more features the player has, the costlier it is, and the more draining it becomes on the battery. So keep in mind your budget and what you really need. If you have opportunity, head out to the stores for a test drive of the player you favor. Check that video playback is smooth. Look out for any skipping of frames, jittering, flashing or any other forms of artefacts. Last but not least, remember to find out what's in the box before you buy, so you won't end up having to purchase optional addons in order to get the best out of your device. Whatever your needs, there's always a device out there for you. The key is in sussing out the right one for your budget.