MP3 players all around

This week looks to be fairly busy, and Thursday seems to be especially busy (even without it being Valentine's Day), so I gave my Valentine's Gift to Gayle a little early.

I had picked up an MP3 player for her. This would be her first. It isn't big storage-wise (only 2 GB), and it isn't particularly fancy, but it is a lot easier to carry around than the CD collection she had been lugging back and forth to work. And since we have both joined the local health club, I figured she would enjoy listening to some music while working out. And, physically, it is really tiny... about the size of a matchbox, so it is definitely not unwieldy.

In a kind of reciprocal gift, Gayle allowed me to order an MP3 player of my own. This will actually be my second MP3 player. My first was given to me as a birthday present last year. I had never used one before, but I quickly came to enjoy being able to carry my entire music collection around with me.

However, my MP3 player was not new when it was given to me, and the battery was not the best, a situation that has deteriorated rapidly while I have owned it. It is to the point now where I don't trust it in any situation where I don't have it plugged in to the charger. Obviously, this makes it extremely unportable. It has a lot of storage (20 GB), which is much more than I needed for music, but it does come in handy as an external hard drive, allowing me to transfer very large files, or a very large number of files, from one computer to another in situations where I don't have network connections.

Since the instructions recommended not having the player hooked up to a computer without having it plugged in, that feature will remain, and I will continue to use it. But I really needed a portable MP3 player for my music.

Unfortunately, my music collection tops just over 2 GB, so I had to get the next largest size, which is 4 GB. It is a little fancier than Gayle's (mine has the ability to view photos and watch videos, but since the screen is less than 2" diagonal, I can't imagine I would do that too much). I just ordered it tonight, so I don't have it yet, but I expect it later this week or early next week.

And in case you are wondering, no, none of our MP3 players are iPods. My old one is a Samsung YH-920, and both Gayle's new one and the one I ordered are made by SanDisk. Gayle's is a Sansa Clip, and mine will be a Sansa e260.