MP3 Player for the Gym

Harddrive players are not good. They're big, heavy, consumes a lot of power, easily broken, and some are even noisy. Definately not something you would want to carry around in a gym.

Put it in your pocket and feel your pants drop down...

1 GB isn't measly. In my opinion, 512 MB is more than enough. An average 5 minute mp3 file at the typical 128kbps quality is just under 5 MBs. 512 MB would take more than 100 songs. Do you really need that many? Most people just load the player with favorite songs that they were actually gonna listen to. Let's say that you get a 20GB harddisk player, are you really going to move the entire music collection into it? It wouldn't be very convinent, as you'll have to constantly browsing through songs to find favorites to listen to.

I would recommand any of the smaller iRiver players.
http://www.bananapc.com/promo/general/0412_iriver/0412_iriver.htm
I brought the first one on the list, with 128MB, more than a year ago. The price then was twice as it is now. It works perfectly so far, there have been problems. 128MB, or 26 songs, and a FM turner, is enough for me. I change the songs once in a while, and keep the music collection on the computer.

The joystick is really useful. You can change the volume, fast forward and rewind without having to take it out of the pocket. Don't have to try to push small, tiny buttons with fingertips. Also, the old models are rock solid. I'm a really clumsy person, the bruise on my forehead from this morning says something about that. All my possesions are broken, except the mp3 player. The glass panel covering the screen has a crack in it, but display and back lit light still works fine. It was practically indestructable. The small triangular cylinder case is supported by 2 solid chrome triangle plates at both ends. You can hit it with a hammer, and the plates would take on the weight. I once dropped it in the kitchen sink filled with dirty dishwater, and didn't realize until about an hour later. It doesn't turn on right after I fished it out, so I let it sit in the sun for the afternoon. Later, when it's dry, I turned it on and all the songs are still there. Didn't even change to fresh battery. It just works as if nothing happened.

That's the old IFP player. The new ones look less sturdy...

If you concern about the moving in the gym. Then here is the solution for you. If you have a ipod or ipod min you could get this product

Bluetake BT420 Bluetooth Sports headphone kit. It comes with a small white box of bluetooth adapter for you ipod or ipod mini. Once you connect it to your ipod mini or ipod then your enable your mp3 to be a bluetooth mp3 player. then you could put the headphone on do whatever you like in the gym with 10 meters away from you ipod or ipod mini. The cool thing is you could pair it with your PDA and cell phone too. When you listen to the music, your cell phone is still the prority.You could hear the calling waiting sound and you could switch from listening to the music to pick up the phone using the same sports headphone. It could connect to up to 7 device. It is really a cool product.

For more information check this link

www.attractivetech.com/ bluetake-bt420ex-iphono-bluetooth-sports-headphone.html

I have friends that take their ipods to the gym. I know there are holders and stuff that you can purchase to keep the ipod steady while you're on a treadmill or something. That being said, there's always the risk of dropping the player and damaging the hard drive. I would be completely paranoid about dropping a hard driver player.

I just got a Creative MuVo N200 because I wanted a player I could take on my daily hikes with my dog. It's teeny-tiny and very simple to use. I've already loaded 150 songs onto it and I'm actually struggling to find more that are "player worthy!"

If the number of songs is a concern, and you dont care about quality of the song, then creative players come with a converter. You can turn MP3 into WMA, and change it to 64kbps, and you should have songs with less than 2MB. Thats at least 500 songs on a 1G player! So I'd reccomend the Creative N200 1G, and shrink all of the music.