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Its been interesting to see how MP3 players have evolved through the years. No longer are they a simple portable storage devices for music and listening to music. Companies keep coming out with new features and new capabilities for MP3. With each new phase we must re-evaluate which MP3 player will best fit our lifestyle and our intended usage.

With the many choices out there it may be difficult to decide on an MP3 player that is right for you. And, what with all the changes and phases a person could easily want to up-grade to a newer MP3 every other year. The dominating brands in MP3 players are Apple, Creative Labs, Phillips, RCA, iRiver, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba. Of all of these the Apple iPod is the most popular MP3 player.

Important Points When Making a Choice

The most important thing when choosing an MP3 player is to decide on two basic questions.

i)  What will it be used for.

ii) How much storage capacity will you need

Take into account your future needs. And also, consider features you will make the most use of and where and when you will plan to use your MP3 player.

There are basically two types of MP3 : the flash memory players and the hard drive players.

Flash Memory Players

Flash memory players are ity-bity devices the size of a pack of tic-tac’s and very light weight. You could wear one hanging off a ribbon around your neck like a pendant and hardly notice it. The newer ones have an average capacity to hold 1GB to 8GB or 250 to 2000 songs. Flash memory players have no moving parts and because of this they hold up well to a lot of knocking about and abuse.

Hard Disk Players

Hard disk players are thicker, bulkier and heavier than flash memory players. Some Hard disk players weigh close to half a pound. They have a higher storage capacity than flash memory MP3’s. In many hard disk players the storage range is between 8GB and 160GB which means they can store 2000 to 40,000 songs. The hard disk in this player is not solid and has a moving part that spins fast. Unless protected from jolting movements this can easily become damaged.

Other Considerations

When you are out shopping for an MP3 player make sure that the one you decide on is easy to use. Go over it critically and test one out in a store. Flash memory MP3’s have better efficiency when it comes to energy usage and they operate on rechargeable batteries. Hard drive MP3’s run on rechargeable batteries also but the batteries quit a lot faster. Nice features to have are FM Radio, built in microphone and connection to car audio.

MP3’s can be used to ferry information between computers. With the advent of things like online courses and podcasting they provide easy and convenient listening whenever and wherever you need it.. They are great devices to be used during your morning or evening commute to work or when doing chores around the house.

MP3 players are reasonably priced enough that a person might want to consider having separate MP3’s intended for different activities. One MP3 player might be for when you are out on the go and another might be used solely at home for stationary activities.

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Choosing a digital camera can be a very frustrating and time consuming experience with so many makes and models to choose from including Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sony, Panasonic and others. Although the most significant feature when choosing a digital camera is the number of megapixels, which determines the quality of your photos, it is not the only consideration when choosing a digital camera. Items to take into consideration when choosing a camera are cost, resolution, exposure control,  type of memory card and batteries.

The first thing to do is to determine how much you are willing to spend on your camera. You will more than likely find what you are looking for within almost any budget minus certain features, of course.

The hardest decision to make is that of the resolution to choose. A digital photograph is made up of thousands of pixels (little squares); the more pixels per inch, the better quality the photograph. A megapixel is the term used for a million pixels and the more megapixels an imaging sensor has, the higher the camera’s potential resolution. Your budget will be a consideration when choosing the resolution of your camera. Generally, the more you spend the higher resolution camera you can buy.

After considering cost and resolution, exposure control is the next big decision when purchasing a digital camera. Exposure values (and meter modes) may seem a little intimidating, but you can pretty much assume you’ll have the basic assortment of meter modes. Most extended zoom cameras offer full exposure controls, so you can customize settings to fit your preferences. These modes help the camera determine the correct exposure (or best compromise) for tricky compositions, such as a backlit subject.

The next item to consider is the type of media card your camera will use. Media Cards are (in most cameras) the storage or memory card that holds the images until they are loaded onto your computer. Those that use proprietary card formats are often more expensive and less available than more standard card types such as Compact Flash or SD/MMD cards. If your digital camcorder and PDA all use the Secure Digital memory card, this may be a major deciding factor when purchasing a digital camera. Why buy a digital camera with a different format when you can switch the card with electronics you already own? When considering memory cards, you should buy the largest capacity you can afford: the higher capacity cards, while expensive, are cheaper than buying two cards of the next-lower capacity.

If you are a frequent shooter and your camera takes AAA batteries, you will blow through them. Digital cameras use a lot of power, so get rechargeable batteries. Finally, you’ll definitely want to buy a battery charger and a couple of sets of batteries to go with it.

The basics of choosing a digital camera are to know your budget, know what type of pictures you want to take and how you intend to use the pictures. Consider the type of memory card your new camera will use and the type of battery. If you follow these simple rules you should have a much more pleasant buying experience.

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As with buying a PC laptop or for that matter any electrical equipment, it is a case of different strokes for different folks, what might be good for Rama may not be right for Krishna. With laptops, you should consider a few things before you purchase. With the new school, collage, and university terms, starting you may find yourself being convinced that your offspring would do so much better in education with this new top of the line ever so expensive laptop computer. Alternatively, you may be a travailing sales person and find that you need access to the office database while out of the office and the company has given you free reign to choose your own piece of IT kit whatever the situation you should consider the options available that will meet your needs.

Laptop computers are more expensive then an equivalent desktop unit with similar specification and if they go wrong they are much more complicated to repair (and did I mention more expensive as well).

So the first consideration is do you actually need a notebook computer, a desktop unit will give so much more bang for your buck.

So if your still with me, then you have decided being mobile is the only way to go. what things should you be looking for with a new laptop. However, the actual question should be what do you need the laptop to do.

Let’s start with the basics, are you going to be using it for your main computer if so we should be looking for a larger screen. When you spend a lot of time in front of a screen you want to be able to see what you’re doing. If you’re only going using it as a support for your main computer, I would advise a smaller compact unit as the larger laptops begin to weigh you down if you have to carry them around for any length of time.

The hard drive size is another important factor bigger is better in this case go as large as you can afford with what your budget will allow.

Memory again same as above, but just think what you will be using it for, the standard amount of memory for most computers is 512 RAM, which is more then enough for most people. Exceptions to this are if you are going to be using large graphics in application like Photoshop, working with movie files, or any sort of 3D work then I would recommend going for a larger memory directly proportional to the size of the files you will be working with.

Graphics card

For office applications the basic built in graphics adaptors are fine but if your doing any 3d gaming or anything even slightly graphically intense , or want to run windows vista in all is glory then a better card is needed, one with at least 256 Ram

DVD/DVD-RW

A DVD drive is now the minimum you would get in most laptops but for backing up data a DVD-RW is necessary, your data depending on what sort of business you are in can be worth a lot more then your computer, you should make sure you back up regularly.

Wireless

Wireless internet is now a common reality and having a built in wifi card can be a real help when in need of information from the office or the internet I would recommend including this option if at all possible

Operating system

Most of the world has been focused on the Windows operating system with windows XP and now Windows Vista. There is an alternative that a lot of the general public don’t know about, Linux. In the past Linux has been seen as an operating system for computer nerds and geeks and to complicated for Joe public, but with Linux distributions like the excellent Ubuntu this is changing. The benefits of Linux are legion, the best being its free with lots of software available also free.

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