What are the Most Important MP3 Player Features?

[EnzoTen]

What are the most important features in an MP3 player? What features must have's or are very important to you.

Ill start the list off with my list:

• Dedicated Volume Buttons
• Tachtile Controls
• On-the-go playlists
• UMS/MSC transfers
• Bookmarks
• Headphone Jack Pause (headphones out, player pauses)

[CrowdAds]

[sumx4182]

*ability to re-program a button (IE, I hate the record button on the Sansa!)
*decent size, fully color, vibrant screen
*flash memory (i can't wait till 30gb flash is cheap!!!)
*decent size (bigger than an ipod, but not huge)
*good build quality with quality material
*excellent battery life
*built in BT (i don't want to have to use a dongle for my wireless headphones)

[phon-ethics]

-Pure and perfect sound without any enhancement
- Excellent dynamic range, sonic stage and noise-free
-multi format support including FLAC
-full drag&drop plug&play
-Good covered screen with a lot of info displayed
-Smallish
-min 20 GB
-undestructable, you should be able to literally smash it to the ground without damage neither internal nor external

[dafanman]

User removeable and replaceable battery.

Laterz,
dafanman

[saminthehat]

Decent stock earphones
Completely customizable GUI
Obivously needed accessories should be included (e.g. case, cables)
DAB radio, if not FM
Decent download service (i.e. NOT iTunes!)
Pancake fryer.

[geistkommando]

Durable
6-8GB Flash
smallish
OTG Playlists
Good GUI
good battery life

[Destroyer14094]

I know some of these are unrealistic, at least in the short term:
And yes, these are features I dream of having

1.To upload songs to internet, and have the player connect and play these songs via cell phone signal or satellite signal, thus eliminating the need for wi-fi, or possibly even large storage capacity, making a cheap 128mb player still practical.
2.stock headphones that don't plug in(wireless), have excellent range(100 feet from player), and are small clip on's.
3.A flash based mp3 player that has a 30gb Flash drive and is only $139.99
4.Small crank that can be used to charge the mp3 player, but must charge the whole battery in 10 seconds of cranking, and is an adapter that just plugs into the player.
5.An alternative to the crank, solar power adapter(a small solar cell that can be worn on top of your head, or hat, and is separate from the player, so I won't have to hold the player in the air and pointed at the sun, and just plugs into it), to add the ability of charging while I run/workout/walk/do whatever, basically giving me unlimited battery life, assuming there is light.
6.Support of all audio/video formats, and ability to play bitrates as high as 10mbps(way way far off from happening any time soon)
7.Sirius Satellite Radio
8.FM Tuner/Recorder/Recorded Song Namer(so I can tell recordings apart)
9.CHANGEABLE BACKGROUND AND ICONS(Very feasible in the here and now)
10.Auto Playlists and Ability to edit playlists w/o hookup to the computer
11.Customer Support on the player itself
12.Ability to update free space manually on the player, unlike with the sansa where the amount of free space is different than what the player will tell me.
14.Internet browsing, but then again, on an mp3 player that might be to much of a hassle.
15.Ability to show text/powerpoint/things like that
16.Games(ones I can delete and games I can put on the player that didn't come with it
17.3 Terahert processor, 2 Terabytes of ram, 500 Terabytes of free space, and things like that that won't even be in super computers for at least another 10-20 years.
18.EVERYTHING!!!EVERYTHING!!!


But since few of those features are even close to being a reality, I am willing to settle with a Sansa e250r, and when I am 50 years old, I may finally be able to reap the benefits of some of the features I listed, but feature #1 is something we do have the technology to create today, and there are a lot of online hard drive services already out there, so the technology is not only already out there, but is already being used, but separated from each other.

[lwang]

The most important feature:
Display screen
Pause button
Next song button

[dfkt]

UMS/MSC - no MTP
Great audio quality
Strong amp
BBE enhancements
Good battery life
Sleep timer
File/folder browsing - no ID3 crap
Tactile controls - no touch stuff
Useful display (bitrate, codec, elapsed/remaining/complete time, EQ settings, clock, etc...)
Album art

Illusory feature that I'd love: stereo graphic/paragraphic/parametric EQ. Since both my ears sound different I'd really like to tweak the left and right channels separately.

[Abhorsen3rd]

Must Haves
excellent sound quality-no background hissing, annoys the heck out of me
excellent battery life
user-replaceable battery
ums
good value price-shouldn't be a ridiculous price when comparing it to other similar mp3 players
portability/durability-I don't want it breaking down on me, and having to send it in for repairs often
custom equalizer

[electrick_eye]

mtp is ok, I can live with it.

Musts: .avi support, divx support, good battery, id3 support, and idk what else. My zen's touch pad is growing on me.

[JCFantasy23]

No matter what the specs or how good the reviews for an MP3 player, I'd be incredibly hesitant to buy one without a user replaceable battery.

I always lean toward upgradable slots as well (unless I had the huge 30 GB players, but that never happens with my budget)

Sound quality (although this isn't the most important, as long as it sounds a bit better than decent)

Video playback (dont use it much but need it as an option for when I watch music videos, would feel naked without it)

What I'd love to see is customizable wallpaper, but my Sansa doesn't offer it. This isn't something that would stop me from buying a player, but it is a feature that may help me decide between two of them.

[klumsy bot]

UMS
divx/xvid, h.264 support
aac,mp3,wma,flac,ogg
de-clippifier for clipped music
crossfader, if not gapless playback
removable battery
details on display (codec, bitrate, as well as regular id tags)
otg playlist
standard (non-proprietary cables/connections)
eq
picture and text viewer

a great idea would be interchangeable covers (which also protect the screen). If you scratch the screen, you can take off the current cover and swap it for a fresh one (possibly a different colour). I see this on a lot of mobile phones now. This would make your purchase of an mp3 modular - buy the "base" which doesn't have a cover, and you can buy your coloured cover. This would be easier on retailers ("sorry, we're out of the white, can I offer you pink instead?") and the manufacturers (only 1 box art to make)

[starZz]

i tink tat a player having additional feature which allows me to view my document on it, will be great!! Making things more convenient for me to view, edit and save my doc

[a12ctic]

20+ Hours battery life
Rechargable+Replacable Battery
Simple, usable GUI
ID3 Tagging
UMS
Small
Affordable

[dhex]

battery life > sound quality > build quality > supported formats
> everything else.

[classic85]

compatibility > longevity > hardwearing > battery life > sound quality > price > other.

[Night Surfer]

1. Sound Quality
2. Battery Life
3. Album Art
4. Build Quality
5. Interface

[Almoxil]

Here we go...

1. Great sound quality: not having to use enhancements or tweaks to get the sound right is very important -- these enhancements are supposed to be optional, not mandatory.
2. Good color screen: for displaying fine album art, or viewing photos or movies when needed.
3. Efficient layout for the "now playing" screen: most DAP/PMPs I've seen or used have awkward layouts for the "now playing" screen, leading to a waste of pixels. For instance: what's the point of showing smallish album art when a gadget has such a nice 260k color 2.5" screen? (I'm talking about the Zen Vision:M here -- people at Creative, come on!!)
4. UMS: hands-down, it's the easiest way to get your contents in the DAP or PMP. Some people will argue that MTP makes the experience easier for the average owner, but I strongly disagree. My girlfriend isn't tech savvy, and she feels much more comfortable using pen-drive like devices than having to install drivers, learn how to use WMP, MMJB, MM, iTMS or other 2-to-4 letter software, or praying for WinXP to recognize the thing.
5. Dedicated volume controls: not having dedicated volume controls isn't a dealbreaker for me, but they're undoubtedly handy while on the move or when you don't want to take the gadget off your pocket.
6. Good battery life: if you have to charge the battery of your DAP/PMP through USB for 5 hours and have an average battery life of 15 hours (typical numbers for some manufacturers), that means the gadget will spend approximately 1/4 of its life charging the battery. 1/8 would be better...

[dtrust]

As an audio book user more than music:

1. great sound. ie: no background hiss. believe it or not, this is more annoying with books than music.

2. bookmarking that makes sense. A dedicated button that, when pressed, pauses the song/book, stores the current position as the current bookmark, and stores it also as the next entry in a FIFO list that is maybe 10-15 items long. This allows stopping the player instantly without losing your place and being able to go back and forth between songs and books easily. This would be a trivial programming task. Why it isn't on all players now is just beyond me.

3. battery life in excess of 40 hours, with a charge time less than 5 hours, and charging independant of data transfer if desired.

4. 2.5" screen, with 256K colors and 250PPI resolution.

5. replaceable battery.

6. scratch resistant screen.

7. bluetooth.

8. buttons spaced far enough apart and large enough that you can use them without having to have fingers the size of McDonalds french fries.

9. voice commands. Cell phones have them, why not MP3 players?