With technology and explosion of music business, blossomed many musicians pouring out their emotions. The number of music tracks and genres grew exponentially over the decades and music became unmanageable, even a personal collection. Not so long ago, piles of gramophone records or audio cassettes could be found in every music fan's house. They are difficult to organize and maintain in good condition. However, that is past.

Everything changed since then. The way we create, listen to and share music. Just as nobody thought in the good olden days that a cassette player would replace a gramophone, who could have thought a decade back that a compact and ultra-light digital mp3 audio player will replace the cassette record player. These days you can find MP3 players that are as small as the USB device with a dual function. Most of the mp3 players today have a high memory capability and multiple functions. The memory can range from 1GB to 60 GB. All the problems of an average music buff were solved with one instrument, the MP3 player. MP3 players are simple, small, easy to use, high fidelity sound and you can carry hundreds of your favourite songs with you in your pocket.

I know that you wanted to buy one immediately. However, you need to know a little more about these MP3 players. Different mp3 players have different configurations and have different functional capabilities. Some of the mp3 players come with basic functions and buttons while others have complex functionalities and jazzy buttons. Therefore, when you are out there in the market to find the right mp3 player then you need to look for the following functionalities:

i. Memory: How many songs or files it can hold. There is no point buying an mp3 player with 30GB memory if you are not going to use it for storing other files like videos or presentations. Well, it depends on how many songs you want to store on your MP3 player. 30GB of memory space is a lot for storing just mp3 or audio files and it costs a bit too. You can store up to 250 songs per GB. Therefore, it's your calculation based on your songs collection. Look for a flash memory player that has at least 64MB onboard memory.

ii. Connection: Connection refers to the compatibility to your computer, it is very important. Many people download music from internet and transfer them to the MP3 player. Sometimes you may want to keep some songs on your computer to make room for new songs on your MP3 player. Few mp3 players offer wireless transfer of files but most of the mp3 players offer two options: USB and FireWire. Whether your mp3 player has the USB option or the FireWire option, you will need a cable, which will be included in the package. The cable will connect the mp3 player to the USB port of your computer so that you can easily transfer files from the computer to the mp3 player or vice-versa. FireWire primarily supports connection to the Mac.

iii. Display: Most of the mp3 players available today have a display screen although the size of the screen will vary from player to player. The display screen displays song name, album name, artiste name apart from some other information such as time, track length etc. The display screen will also help you to operate the main menu so that you can choose a particular function. Of course, some very good MP3 players do not have a screen. It is just a matter of choice.

iv. Type of files: All mp3 players can save or play particular audio files or convert a particular type of audio file into an mp3 file. Therefore, when you are shopping for an mp3 player, you need to find a player that can play Mp3 and support WMA as well as AAC audio files. Apart from that, the mp3 player should also be able to support MPEG4-SP, MJPEG, WMV9, DivX 4/5, and XviD.

These are some of the most important aspects of an mp3 player, you should consider before buying. Apart from these aspects, any extra functions will also be useful like FM radio, Clock & alarm, voice recorder etc. Remember that additional functions mean extra cost. If you do not need them, you can spend the saved amount on buying new albums.