Portable MP3 players are all the craze these days. It is rare to find somebody that either owns one or knows somebody that owns one. They come in many flavors from players that have built in memory to players with hard drives. Many have very portability factors and some don't. They also have lots of different price ranges which I will also cover. I'm going to go over what you should look for when trying to purchase a cheap portable MP3 player.

Should you pick a cheap portable mp3 player with memory built in or a hard drive? Well that really depends on you. Most memory based mp3 players only have a limited amount around 1GB or less. Which in terms of the amount of songs you can fit on it will range from 200 to 250. If that amount of songs is good with you then I would recommend that you go for it because you will find the cheapest portable mp3 players in this model range. But what if you have more songs than that?

If you have more songs than that you could always get a player that has the hard drive built in. Most of these allow 500 songs and more and also allow you to use them for personal data storage devices so you can take you data from one computer to another.

Which are more portable? Well that also depends on you. If you want something that will clip on your clothing while you are running then I would go with a memory based mp3 player. Because these players don't have moving parts they can make them much much smaller then you run of the mill hard drive based player.

Now if you want to be able to put you mp3 player in your pocket then the hard rive based mp3 players are perfect. Most of these are very compact now and will easily fit in your pocket. Some of them include the IPOD and Zune. Both of these players are great because you can find old models that are some of the cheapest portable mp3 players on the market. And it just because it is last years model.

A big factor when looking for the cheapest portable mp3 player is the weight. You don't want some 3 pound player hanging off the side of you pants when you are trying to work out. You could literally run out of you pants. And that is just down right embarrassing. Why do I know this, because I speak from experience. Again the memory based players would be best for this type of use because almost all of them are small and compact and only way a few ounces.

And last but not least I would look at the dimensions of the player. If you are running you don't want some big 7x5 players that will make you look like you didn't have you v8 today. Just make sure that you check the size of the player before purchasing because it is sometimes though to figure out how big a player is just from a picture. You could go into retail store and pick out the size that is best for you then go to my site and find the exact one you want at a highly discounted rate.

In closing the cheapest portable mp3 player for you depends on you. There are tons of different kinds of player available today. If you want to use it for exercising and the like then go with a memory based player. They offer more portability than any hard drive based player available today. But if you just want to take you tunes with you then a hard drive based player is your best option.