For my project, I decided that I wanted to research something that I would actually find interesting to research. So, of course, I had to choose something in the technology sector. Some people think that the only MP3 player worth buying would be one of the iPods. However, this may not be true depending on what features they want.

The main source of my project was a survey I conducted on one of my websites (Fig. 1). The survey was then advertised on many online forums that had to do with different MP3 Players. The users of the forums then came and filled out the survey on their opinions of each player they owned.

All together, one hundred sixty-six people took the survey for eighteen different players. Only ten of those players got enough ratings for me to get data from them. I did realize some interesting data in the survey that I’m sure will cause some controversy, but more on that later.

Part of the questions I asked in the survey resulted in a few interesting findings. As an example, only 33.7% of people use the earbuds that came with their player. I really thought this would be a higher number considering the amount of people out there that don’t care about what their music sounds like. My guess is most people bought new earbuds or headphones because they either didn’t think they were comfortable, or because they lost or broke the original pair.

So, like any good technology MP3 players are constantly being updated. Three out of the ten players in the end have had new versions come out while the survey was going on. The Apple i Pod Shuffle has had a newer version come out to replace it. Cowon have replaced the Cowon D2 with the Cowon D2+, and Samsung has replaced the Samsung P2 with the Samsung P3.  This just shows how quickly technology moves in, and then, how quickly it is out of date.

The reason most people buy a certain player can vary greatly from person to person. Some people just buy it because it is the cheapest. While others buy the player because it is what everyone else has.

One of the reasons a person might buy a player is because it is the one they have heard of. When a person walks into a retail store they are naturally going to pick the product they have heard of. The player of choice for this person would be one of the Apple iPods.

As was mentioned above, another reason one may buy a player would be because it is cheapest. Sometimes a person only looks at the prices of products, not what they can do or how durable they are. This type of person would probably pick an “off-brand” player. Or they may pick out one of the SanDisk Sansa players.

One may also buy a based on the recommendation of the sales representative. If so, he will probably end up buying a SanDisk Sansa or an Apple iPod. The best thing to do to prevent a sales person from convincing one to buy something he doesn’t want, is to know what one wants before they go.

One might also rely on the opinions of his geek friends. Geeks are great people to know, but remember because it is best for them doesn’t mean it is best for everyone. Geeks often pick the player that can do the most things. As of the writing of this paper they may recommend to get an iPod Touch or a Zune depending on what feature set one wants.

The mentality of some is that if everyone has it, it must be the best. Well, this is partially true, but one can’t always count on this idea in life. If their choice is based solely on popularity, they would buy the iPod Touch. However, like Speedos, the iPod Touch is not for everyone.

Each person wants to do different things on their MP3 players. All these things will make a difference on which player they choose. For some, choosing a player is as important as choosing a first car.

If one would like to browse the web the best player to do this on would be the iPod Touch. “It doesn’t have the features I was seeking in a mini PC but the browser capabilities motivated me most.” (Dorausch) If browsing is main the feature one wants, then the iPod Touch is definitely the player for him. The Safari browser on it works perfectly with most sites.

Another feature users may want is the ability to sync their player over Wi-Fi. This allows users to plug in their players for charging and seamlessly sync new music, videos, and podcasts from their computer to the player. The best player for doing this is the Microsoft Zune.

Many people probably don’t think about what formats their player can handle. The formats a player supports are chosen by the company that manufactures the player. The formats a person wants to have will depend on the services they want to use.

A video format is the way the video is encoded. Each player then decodes the video to display it on the screen and to send the audio through the headphones. If the player doesn’t support the format, it won’t play it because it doesn’t know how to decode it.

Audio formats are a whole different thing; each person has their own personal format and bitrates they prefer for their music. The most popular format is MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines MP3 as: “A computer file format for the compression and storage of digital audio data” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

There are two types of audio formats lossy and lossless:

A lossy compression method is one where compressing data and then decompressing it retrieves data that may well be different from the original, but is close enough to be useful in some way. Lossy compression is most commonly used to compress multimedia data (audio, video, still images), especially in applications such as streaming media and internet telephony. (Wikipedia)

Lossless compression preserves all information of the original Waveform file, audio compressed with lossless compression will unavoidably be larger than audio compressed with lossy compression. However, this disadvantage is more than offset by lossless’ ability to be transcoded to other lossless format without any quality degradation. (Hydrogenaudio)

Only certain players support lossless formats. Cowon’s line of players has a wide variety of audio formats supported on its players.

While this has become less of a problem, another thing to look at is if the player will support the DRM the music has on it. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. This is becoming less of a problem because most music is now sold DRM-free.

Digital rights management (DRM) refers to access control technologies used by publishers, copyright holders, and hardware manufacturers to limit usage of digital media or devices. In contrast to copy protection, which only attempts to prohibit unauthorized copies of media or files, digital rights management enables the publisher to control what can and cannot be done with a single instance. For example, a publisher can limit the number of viewings, number of copies, or which devices the media can be transferred to. Digital rights management is being used by companies such as Sony, Apple Inc., Microsoft and the BBC. (Wikipedia)

One may look at the size of a player and have it change his mind. People like to have a player that fits well in their hand, they also like something that they can throw in their pocket. The people in the industry call this “form factor”. Form factor is defined as: “The physical size and shape of a device.” (Webopedia)

One may or may not think about how well a player is built before he buys it. If the player isn’t built well, it won’t last, which means one will waste money on it. Some never think about this, because they don’t realize how much they will use and abuse their players.

Very few people think about what can be installed on the device by the user. There are operating systems for the devices made by users of the players. There are also applications (apps) that can be installed on devices like the iPod Touch.

Rockbox is an operating system one can install on an MP3 player after buying it. It is an open source project; meaning others can help out with developing it. This also means that it is free to download and install. The selection of players supported by Rockbox is actually very large.

Applications made for players, like the iPod Touch, are nice to have access to. They can add functions to the player, or can be just for fun. There is a large community developing for the iPod Touch and it is likely that will continue.

iPod Linux is another operating system for some iPods. It is a stripped down linux kernel that is designed to run on certain iPods. It is similar to Rockbox, except it only supports the iPod line of players.

As I mentioned earlier, I did a survey and compared different players to each iPod in the market at the time. The following will consist of price comparisons and then a chart of the ratings that came from the survey.

The first players I will compare will be the Apple iPod Classic and the Microsoft Zune 120. The retail price of the iPod Classic is $249.00 (Apple) compared to the Zune’s only slightly higher $249.99 (Microsoft) (+ tax on both). For that price the Zune has a few things the iPod does not have. The Zune features wireless syncing, FM radio, and from the device music buying.

The above ratings are based off of a ten point scale. Each person’s responses were averaged for each player and then rounded to the nearest one-tenth. The “total” is all the other results averaged the same way.

The next players that will be compared are the Apple iPod Nano 8GB/16GB (4th Generation), the SanDisk Sansa Fuze 8GB, and the Microsoft Zune 8/16. The prices are shown below in the chart:

The following are the ratings of the players compared to the iPod Nano (4th Generation):

The iPod Shuffle (2nd Generation) is the next player I will be comparing. It retails for $49.00 with a capacity of 1GB. (Amazon) The player it will be compared to will be the SanDisk Sansa Clip. It comes in multiple capacities: 1GB for $34.99, 2GB for $49.99, 4GB for $59.99, and 8GB for $99.99. (SanDisk). The following are the ratings collected from the survey:

Now, the most popular of the iPod players, the iPod Touch, will be compared to the Cowon D2 and the Samsung P2. The iPod Touch has the following capacities and price points: 8GB for $229.00, 16GB for $299.00, and 32GB for $399.00 (Apple). The Cowon D2 has the following capacities and price points: 4GB for $109.99, 8GB for $124.99, and 16GB for $154.99 (Jet Mall). The Samsung P2 has the following capacities and price points: 8GB for $179.99 (Samsung) and 16GB for $249.99 (Samsung). The ratings for these players are as follows:

The most well known players are the iPod, Zune, and Sansa. The iPod is the market leader and has a huge market share, but as you can see from the survey results, it isn’t the best at everything. The Zune is Microsoft’s entry into the market and it is a strong player. However, it doesn’t have the foot-hold iPods have in the market place. SanDisk has a great line of players named “Sansa”. They are strong players and, for the price, they are a bargain.

The main purpose of this paper was to show, that consumers should choose MP3 players based on features they want. They shouldn’t base their decision on what is the best for others. Rather they should make their own decision and buy what is best for them.

Works Cited