Choose an MP3 Player for a gift

If you intend to gift an MP3 player, you can find here few advices and prices that hopefully may help you to find what you are looking for.

Flash or Hard Disk
There are mainly 2 types of MP3 players: with a flash memory and with a hard disk. The first usually is liter (in terms of weight). Hard disk based MP3 player, on the other hand, are heaviest but usually offer much more storage space.

Hard disk based MP3 players are also more expensive usually.

How much memroy
I consider that an MP3 player with less than 2 Go of memory isn't worthwhile. A 4Go starts to be a pretty serious toy. Note that if you intend to play videos with it, consider having 8Go to be able to download complete movies.

Video, audio,...
Most of the MP3 players now offer to play videos as well. This is a great feature actually. If you buy such a device though, ensure that the screen is big enough to see a clear image otherwise you will be paying for a useless feature. I got a player in the past that was supposed to display videos but there were so unclear that I could not even see people moving (it looked like a static image).

Usually, I screen of 1.5-1.8 inches should be correct. Obviously, the bigger the screen, the clearest the image will be.

From the audio perspective, all of them support most of the audio formats available in the market.

Which brand
Here comes the most difficult question: which brand?
If you even thought about buying an MP3 player, you have thought about buying an IPod or something else. Well, if you want to buy it for a teenager, then, yes, that might be the best choice. Why? Simply because "it is cool". This is the trend at the moment. Don't ask why.

There are many IPods; the coolest, the newer... the IPod Touch. Great product according to the lucky holders. However, it is a bit expensive (starts at 329 Canadian Dollars for 8 Go).

The new IPod Nano is pretty too and cheaper. It starts at 159 CAD with 8Go. I like this model. It is thin, very handy and easy to use. A great device actually.

For the real IPod fans, there's still the IPod Classic with 160 Go at 369 CAD. Expensive, but difficult to find something better.

You may think that I am a fan of IPod. I am not and the reason is simple: I like to listen to the radio and the IPod does not have it.

For this reason, I have bought an RCA player which was very good until, 6 months later, started to have troubles and eventually stopped working. It did not last for one year... :) Bad performance.

Samsung got very reliable MP3 players. Got a friend who bought one and he's very happy with it. Software updates are available (which is not always the case for all the brands) and it has the FM built in. I also like their latest model (YP-P2JAR/XAC) with 4 Go and a large touch screen as the UI interface. Great stuff.

SanDisk is a good brand too. I never heard complaints about it.

I suppose that Sony players are good too. However, I find that their prices are pretty expensive compared to other competitors.

Hope that this helps you to find the right model to buy for you or for a gift.

Let me your comments if you want any other advice.

Happy shopping.