Do we really need another new standard
for audio recording. After CD, DCC (does anyone remember), DAT, Mini Disc,
DVD, MP3, Real Audio, etc...
To tell you the truth, I don't need it. I have a solid state mp3
player and I'm totally happy with it. It contains all the music I need on
a tiny little hard disk. But I must admit it wasn't cheap at all.
There's one fact about mp3 cd players that's hard to argue with. It's just bang for the bucks. There is simply
no cheaper way to store music in high quantity. About 50 cents for
650 Mbytes for a recordable disc, where you can store up to seven
hours music is simply unbeatable.
Flash memory storage price is just the other extreme. Users who wish
to expand their portable devices have to pay 30 bucks for 64
Mbytes. It is apparent that the cost per meg is too high for many consumers
and one of the new players might be a nice solution since it can hold over
200 songs per disk at a cost of around 50 cents.
After this basic advantage you probably want to know what other
benefits they can offer to let you drop your older device in order
to get one of this brand new ones. So here are some new features this units
could offer.
- A good anti-shock buffer system
- Lower power consumption
- Voice recording feature
- Informative LCD display with various additional information
- Compression rate/ Bit rate of 16K - 256K
- Supports all VBR (Variable Bit rates)
- Multi-session recorded CD-R support (very rare feature)
- CDRW support
- Full artist, song title, album and musical genre navigation
Look out for this features when you decide to make a change.
