MP3 Players
Dear [Lynn],
I’m currently not a consumer of these no-moving-parts technologies. However, I do use MP3 CDs. Perhaps [your daughter] doesn’t need a large variety of music, and if that’s so, these players seem great. Which YEPP are you considering? There seem to be several. The smaller YEPPs don’t hold lots of music. Have you considered their 20 GB media center? That could store over a thousand hours, although it’s probably harder on batteries since it has a hard disk drive in it.
Alternatively, consider a portable MP3 CD player. They’re cheaper (less than $60), almost always use standard AA batteries, last for 30 – 50 hours per battery set, and she’d have as much music available as she’d be willing to carry on the discs.
CDs with hi-fi MP3 files (256 kbps) hold almost seven hours per disc. You could fit almost fourteen hours of commonly-available 128 kbps MP3s. On twenty full discs, almost 300 hours of tunes would fit. Of course, the catch of these players is that you have to carry CDs, and they aren’t as rugged as the YEPPs. Good luck choosing.
Tom