Choosing the MP3 Player That's Right for You

The main consideration you should making before buying an MP3 player is 'What am I going to use it for?'. This might sound a little self-evident ("listening to MP3s, duh"), but it's not as clear cut as that.

I've been through two MP3 players in the past three years, and both times, there were very good reasons for picking the model I wanted. I've also chosen a third for a sibling, a very different model for different reasons. Briefly, I'll try and explain why I chose each one at the time.

Throughout this 3 year period, I've either been in a situation where I'm using someone else's PC, or I'm using an older PC that doesn't have a lot of storage space. Therefore for myself, I was looking for something with a lot of storage space, so I could keep my entire collection on it and move it from PC to PC. First time round, I plumped for a Creative Zen Touch 40Gb, which was about as big as they got at the time, over the 40Gb iPod. Two reasons for this; firstly, it was about ten pounds cheaper, which is always nice. Secondly, it had a battery life of about twenty four hours continuous play, compared to the iPod (at the time) having about eight. I was travelling a lot at the time also, either to or from work for an hour each day, or to and from my fiancee, on an eight hour flight. I didn't want something that would die halfway through the trip.

On the whole, I rather liked the Zen, but at the time, I had nothing to compare it to. The battery life was as advertised, though God help you if you had it connected to a USB port, as it would drain power at a frightening rate, rather than actually charge up like you'd expect. A full charge might keep it connected to the PC for perhaps 90 minutes, and the manual strongly recommended not leaving it charging while you were using it, as it'd confuse the battery's memory. Still, for the most part, it was a good, solid device.

Based on my positive experiences so far, I had no qualms recommending Creative to my mother when she was looking for an MP3 player for my younger brother. He has his own PC with plenty of room, so a smaller player wasn't a problem. We ended up deciding on the Zen V, with about 4Gb of storage on it.

The player lasted about a week before the backlight on the screen went completely dead. Well, fair enough, some of them do go wrong. We sent it back to Creative, who sent us a new player by return of post, albeit one with a broken front controller that had actually snapped off in transit and lodged itself in the innards. So, we patiently sent it back, and waited. And waited. And eventually contacted Creative, who said that yes, they'd received the player back, but had managed to lose it somehow, and it might take up to 90 days to find it so they could send a replacement.

You can imagine my face at this point. They were essentially saying 'Sorry, we messed up, hope you don't mind waiting while we (hopefully) correct the mistake. A series of increasingly angry emails were sent, eventually hitting a level of management who could cut through the red tape and actually send us a new player. To the best of my knowledge, this one is still working, but tch. Honestly.

With this in mind, when my Zen stopped working during a torrential flood which entailed me walking home from work over 15 miles of roads that were often waist deep in water, I didn't bother trying to return it for repairs. Admittedly, it wasn't Creative's fault that I had to swim home, nor had they ever promised it would be watertight; I just had no faith left in their repairs team. So I decided to get a brand new MP3 player. Can you guess which company I didn't buy it from?

Instead, I decided on an 80Gb Ipod video, which rather than paying full retail price for as previously, I picked up on eBay brand new for around half the asking price. Given how impressed I am with the interface and the smoothness of actually transferring files to and from it, I wish I'd known three years ago.

Moral of the story? Firstly, buy an MP3 player which suits your needs. 80Gb of space isn't much use if you only own half a dozen albums worth of music. Secondly, ask anyone and everyone you know with one what they think of it, and what sort of customer service they've had when it's needed.