Brands

Apple

MP3 players have been on the market since the mid 1990s, but nobody really listened until 2001. That year, Apple's iPod took the music world by storm, and soon displaced the Sony Walkman as the portable music player of choice. The company now commands 70 percent of the digital music-player market. Apple's success rests in part on its creation of a self-contained digital-entertainment system. iTunes, its content-management software, works seamlessly—only with iPods. Its online iTunes store offers by far the largest library of online video content, supplementing its dominance over online music sales. There are four iPod lines:  The iPod Classic hard-disk players, the Nano flash players, and the Touch, a flash player with a large touch screen, full Web browser, and the ability download content wirelessly via its Wi-Fi connection. There's also a tiny belt-buckle-like Shuffle, a flash player that lacks a display.

Archos

This French company, which introduced its first MP3 player in 2000, has become one of the best-known players in the PVR (personal video recorder) market. Its devices can record video and other content from a variety of sources, including cable and satellite. Archos players handle music, video, photos and storage, as well as data. This MP3 player brand makes flash and hard-disk players, some with GPS navigation and Wi-Fi capability for Web surfing and synching with computers.

Cowon America

Cowon America is a division of Korean-based Cowon Systems. Its iAUDIO line includes hard and flash drives. Some of its players now have Wi-Fi capability for wirelessly synching with PCs.

Creative Labs

Creative was one of the first companies to introduce MP3 players. Its high-end Zen players have a full complement of controls for playing back music, videos and photos. Its MuVo line of players are somewhat more compact and have fewer features.

Insignia

Insignia is Best Buy’s house brand, sold exclusively by the retailer. Insignia’s flash players, which are made overseas by contract manufacturers, offer a fair number of features, including Bluetooth stereo support, at modest prices.

Microsoft

Microsoft introduced the Zune in 2005, along with the Zune Marketplace to compete with Apple's iPods and iTunes. Zune flash-memory and hard-disk players have the ability to wirelessly share their content with other Zunes (albeit with many restrictions), as well as wirelessly synch with PCs. The Zune Marketplace is an online store and a social network, with ties to Microsoft's Xbox gaming platform. You need to buy Points, Microsoft's own currency, to pay for songs on the Zune Marketplace—a restriction some users may find confusing.

RCA

RCA sold its MP3-player business to Audiovox, though players continue to bear the RCA logo. All of its players—the Pearl, Opal, and Jet—store their content in flash memory.

Samsung

Samsung offers a full line of MP3 players—all of them flash—with leading-edge technology, such as the ability to use Bluetooth technology to answer cell phones. Some of its players also have built-in speakers.

SanDisk

This flash-memory-card maker, which introduced its first MP3 player in 2004, is now the No. 2 MP3 player brand, behind Apple. Not surprising, most of its Sansa line of players have card slots for expanding storage capacity using SanDisk’s microSD cards.

Sony

Sony is the best-known consumer electronics brand in the United States, practically inventing the portable-music product category with its Walkman tape and CD players. Like iPods, Sony players often have volume limiters to protect hearing.

See also:

Bluetooth headsets

Cell phones

Special Section:
Guide to mobile electronics

Special Section:
Apple's iPhone