This is the first of a three-post series. This first installment will be to define & describe some of the things you may want to look at if you were interested in buying an MP3 player. Posts 2 & 3 will talk about my experience with my recent purchase of an MP3 player. The intention of this post is to serve as a primer for MP3 players and give you a general understanding of the terms and technologies associated with bringing music into your life on the go.
Connecting to the Player
First thing to look at it how you physically connect your MP3 player to your computer. There are two categories, proprietary connectors or standardized connectors.
Standardized connectors are connectors that are available for general usage. A perfect (and approriate) example would be a USB connector. USB is a standard connector that comes in 4 different varieties, A, B, mini-B (aka mini USB), and micro A/B. I have receieved mini USB cables from each of 1 PDA, 2 different MP3 players, 2 different cameras, and 3 portable hard drives I’ve purchased over the years. There’s a very likely at least 1 or 2 mini USB cables in your house right now. In other words, mini USB is everywhere. If that’s not enough, a replacement cable is stupid-cheap. It’s important to note that of the 4 USB varieties I would say that USB A and mini-B are, by far, the most prevalent connecters out there.
Proprietary connectors are just that, proprietary. This means the manufacturer of the player owns the connector and licenses it’s use out to other companies for a fee. The fine folks at Apple are the perfect example of of how this is done. They sell you an iPod for a premium fee, and then they make more money off of your purchase by selling the rights to use their connector to companies who then make iPod docks, iPod remotes, and iPod-enabled toasters. In exchange for this the end user is limited in how, when & where he/she connects to their player. While others may disagree with me, I see no real reason for a proprietary connector other than to make the manufacturer more money and to increase the difficulty for the end user.
