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Buyer's guide to music players

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Dr Dre – rapper, producer, music mogul and a man it’s unwise to forget – has hooked up wit’ Monster for the new Beats headphones. Two years in the making, they employ new driver tech to serve up the throbbing bass you’d expect from Dre, as well as a push-to-listen mute button and Monster’s iSonitalk headphone adaptor for the iPhone. Our verdict on these £300 hip-hop cans? Totally sick and thugged out, on the real.

  1. How much memory do you need? For casual use, a 512MB player will hold about 100 tracks, but real music fiends will need at least a 30GB player, to hold thousands of high-quality MP3s.
  2. Flash-based MP3 players like the Nano are smaller and have capacities of up to 8GB. Hard drive players, such as the iPod, hit 160GB, but tend to be bigger.
  3. Get an FM transmitter and listen to your iPod while driving. Plug it into your car’s cigarette lighter and tune your radio to the frequency. Easy.
  4. Popular music formats include MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV. Music sold by Apple’s iTunes store uses the AAC format with DRM copyright protection. Sony’s Walkmans support its ATRAC format as well as MP3, etc.

#1 music player

iPod Touch 16GB

£270

Performance: Just look at it. How could you not love something with a massive touchscreen like that? Great for movies, and no slouch for music, too. We enjoy its quality.

Love: Gorgeous touchscreen. Simple to use.

Hate: Summons muggers like bees to pollen.

Buy one here

Best of the rest - music players

Sony NWZ-A815 2GB

£90

Performance: Ideal for the occasional visual treat, but stunning sound quality is what truly sets this music machine apart from the chasing pack.

Love: Eye-poppingly brilliant visuals. Superb audio quality, too.

Hate: The small screen gives a less than multiplex experience.

Buy one here

Samsung P2 4GB

£130

Performance: Ditching buttons in favour of a touchscreen, this also bins the wires. You’ll have to budget for Bluetooth cans, but you get 35 hours of music playback. Can’t say fairer than that.

Love: Touchscreen interface. Loads of extra features.

Hate: No Bluetooth earphones thrown in for your money.

Buy one here

Flash mp3 players

iPod Nano 8GB

£130

Performance: With a chic new design and video on its 320x240 screen, the Nano rules.

Love: Extraordinarily cheap. Great sound.

Hate: The screen’s too small for video.

Buy one here

iRiver X20 8GB

£130

Performance: A ropey clickwheel is the only drawback to this multi-format monster.

Love: Wide video support. Great audio.

Hate: Nasty clickwheel.

Buy one here

Hard disk MP3s

iPod Classic 160GB

£230

Performance: Looks like the old iPod, but has a mad amount of storage, as opposed to just loads.

Love: Can hold all of your music files, and more.

Hate: More sluggish and buggy than the last one.

Buy one here

Microsoft Zune

£260

Performance: A genuine challenger to Apple's
occupation of the MP3 throne, thanks to video and wireless file sharing. Import only, though.

Love: Decent sound. Screen’s tasty.

Hate: Not actually available in the UK. Dang.

Buy one here

Creative Zen Vision M

£150

Performance: Sounds and looks fantastic, but navigation can prove cumbersome at times.

Love: Great screen. Superb for video.

Hate: Sludgy navigation.

Buy one here

Teeny-tiny MP3 players

Creative Zen 4GB

£100

Performance: Operation is simple, but music playback lacks sparkle. Video is smooth, though.

Love: Video looks great. Plays loads of formats.

Hate: 2.5-inch screen is too small for video.

Buy one here

Creative Zen Stone Plus

£50

Performance: Extremely easy to use, this is the same price as a Shuffl e, but has a screen.

Love: LCD screen. FM radio. Great battery.

Hate: No hold button. No gapless playback.

Buy one here

iPod Shuffle 1GB

£50

Performance: A vast improvement on its predecessor with clever, clip-on design.

Love: It’s tiny. Works well with iTunes.

Hate: No screen makes navigation a chore.

Buy one here

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