Last spring I had to ask myself exactly this question. My lifestyle had changed and I was out and about on the road more frequently than ever before. Being a stay at home Mom with a home business I was perfectly content to use my computer as my MP3 Player along with Winamp to keep my MP3's organized, but now I worked out of the home full time and had to deal with the daily commute to and from work and I wasn't fond of what I was hearing on the radio every day.
When I went looking to see what was available, I was overwhelmed with the various choices. Technology had been rapidly changing since the days of buying my teenage girls MP3 players where I had been more concerned with price, durability and size capacity. If you have children, you'll understand the not wanting to spend too much money on something that might be lost, broken or stolen by kids who tend to be a bit hard on their things. My oldest daughter had a MP3 player stolen out of a locked gym locker while she was off taking her gym class in school. My youngest forgets to take things out of her pockets before throwing her clothing in the wash and managed to lose one that way. Needless to say, when choosing a mp3 player for someone else versus myself, my criteria is different.
MP3 Players come in a variety of styles, shapes & sizes and run from a basic no thrills player to the full featured iPod Touch which is like a mini computer with wifi access, photo storage, email, games and much more. I've listed some questions below to ask yourself to help you decide which one might be right for you.
1. Who are you buying the MP3 player for?
2. How much are you willing to spend? They range in price between $10 & $360 approximately
3. What will you be using the MP3 player for?
4. How many songs do you want to be able to store on it? They come in 512MB (approximately 120 songs) - 160GB (40,000 songs) sizes
5. Do you want the ability to do more than just listen to MP3's?
For someone who is just looking to listen to music while mowing their lawn or exercising, the iPod Shuffle would be a great choice as it has a clip to attach to your clothing, its small in size, with 2GB & 4GB storage and comes in 5 different colors.
If you like to stay in touch with the world via email, browse your favorite internet sites, play games, watch videos, keep a daily calendar and a variety of other features made available by downloadable applications then the iPod Touch would be a fantastic choice.
In the end I chose the iPod Touch 32GB because I like to stay connected to my online business, chat with my friends via Instant messengers and play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook whenever I can find a free WiFi connection to connect into when I'm out and about.
Check out more information about Apple iPods: Touch, Nano, Shuffle & Classic!