MP3 players are incredibly common these days, and with a bewildering range of models, features, styles and sizes it is hard to know what to go for, if you are out looking to purchase one yourself. Many people who are especially style conscious decide on the overall appearance first. It does seem that MP3 players have become a fashion accessory, and are often visible very deliberately, so that people can admire your taste in technology presumably!

Choosing your MP3 player based on size, colour and general appearance is one way of selecting your technological investment, although once you have done this, it is still worth investigating the wide range of features available, because very few are standard.

If you are not quite as concerned about the overall appearance of your MP3 player, you may decide instead to focus on the features you need, or would prefer not to have, and narrow your selection down that way. There are two particular factors you'll need to consider early on, and these are based on your lifestyle and how you intend to use your MP3 player. The first is battery use - are you going to be using your player in short bursts, often returning home, or is it to be used on very long journeys where you'll be away for a day or more? This decision will affect the type of battery your player has, and its size. Very small players that are little bigger than a domino have quite short battery lives, whereas larger, bulkier players have much longer lives. Most use rechargeable batteries, and this can also be a wise investment, not only for your pocket but also for the environment.

The other important factor to consider early on is how you'll be using the player itself. Will you be sitting in a car listening to it, or do you go running and like to listen to music whilst you exercise? Some players store music on flash drives, which have no moving parts. This is ideal because if you bounce around a lot, there is nothing inside that will skip, jump or damage. However, there are players which use hard drives, and these are constantly spinning. Any sharp knock or movement may cause the music to jump, or for the disk to be damaged permanently. As far as cost goes, the hard disks are much cheaper, sometimes only costing a tenth of the price that the flash memory does. It is therefore a decision based on your lifestyle as compared to your budget.

There are other features you'll then want to look for - such as a screen. Most, but certainly not all, players have display screens. When you consider that some of these players can now hold tens of thousands of songs, having no display to be able to identify a song within a folder, or list them alphabetically means that you're at the mercy of random selection, or long sequences you can't edit. Another popular feature with many players is a radio tuner. Being able to listen to the radio adds quite a lot to a player, although this feature is usually only available on flash players since the spinning of the hard disk can cause interference with the radio reception.

If you are really in to your technology, you may even decide to look further, such as considering Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth support for wireless headphones. After being bombarded with all of these features and gadgets, you may find you don't even have the time or energy to worry about the color.