Selecting MP3 portable players involves several aspects. First, you must investigate all of the brand name players available on the market.
While there are uncommon or new brands available on the market, the name brand players are the ones that will give you the high quality of sound that you want.
One of the most common players is the Apple iPod family of players. There are several types of iPods that you can choose from, ranging from the standard iPod, the iPod mini and the iPod Shuffle. All of these types will run with either Windows or Macintosh. Unlike many brands, the iPod runs with a hard drive rather than with flash memory.
The next type of popular hard drive driven mp3 players are the Creative family. The Nomad is the primary Creative player, and it takes after the disc man style of cd player. However, while shaped like a disc man, they are not compatible with cds.
There are many flash style players available on the market.
First, there is the Sandisk family, which includes multi piece and single piece players. These players are inexpensive and have a high level of sound quality.
Another style of MP3 players is the JumpGear. This style of player fits with the JumpDrive, which allows you to switch out various libraries and memory sticks with ease while providing all of the functions of a more 'advanced' player.
While there are more than these four players and brands, researching and deciding between one of these four will ensure that you can get the quality of music, while also giving you a place to branch out to find the player that suits your needs the best.