And while MP3 players are waterproof, most of our picks are durable enough to take few dings and nicks without incurring any damage.
Unlike those portable CD players of the past, MP3 players are built for movement, so you never have to worry about your songs skipping or any physical components falling out. If youre using it to accompany your exercise, pick a player that is small enough to tuck into a running belt or light enough to strap around your arm. When looking for the best MP3 player, consider how youre going to use it and what youre listening to. The phone goes off, but the music stays on. A portable music player is also great if you want to disconnect and listen to music and not be reachable. Phones are also larger and heavier, and if you want to take your music on go say, for workout or run, a portable MP3 player will be significantly easier to carry and more lightweight.
And while you may currently be using your phone to listen to music, switching to or switching back to MP3 player will actually help free up space on your device and prevent your phone battery from draining so quickly. These days, most portable MP3 players triple up as voice recorders and video players too, and theyre also engineered to play other file formats besides just MP3.
First rising to prominence in the file-swapping days of late 90s, MP3s really began taking off as a serious music format a few years later, with the arrival of digital music platforms like iTunes, and pocket-size MP3 players that replaced those bulky portable CD players that were never really quite portable enough to begin with. One of the most commonly distributed audio files used today, MP3, is a compressed digital file that makes your music easy to download, share and store without requiring tons of space or taking up tons of memory. The rise of streaming may be dominating headlines in the music industry, but millions of people still purchase their music on MP3s. Products feature are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn commission from purchases made from our links retailers may also receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.