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As far as the best mp3 player goes the choice is quite a simple one.  Apple.  Apple offers a range of MP3 players that range from the micro shuffle all the way to its premium iTouch which is very much the Rolls Royce of mp3 devices.

It’s hard to imagine now, but I remember in the late 90s wondering when the manufactures of music hardware would start to pay attention to the unrelenting rise in the creation of mp3 music files.

In reality they didn’t.  Apple saw the opprotunity, created the now legendary ipod which launched on an unsuspecting public 23 October 2001.  The first model had a firewire connection and a capacity of just 10gb but it included the innovative click wheel technolgoy.  Navigation was a breeze and it quickly became a best seller.

Generation two followed soon after on 17 July 2002 with generation three not far behind 28 April 2003.

The path of evolution has shown no sign of letting up since.  The first fourth generation model appeared in July 2004 followed by a colour version just 4 months later.  Generation six appeared on 5 Sept 2007 which also corresponded with the launch of the exceptional iPod Touch.

During this time hard disk capacity has increased, battery life extended and improved functionality developed.

Perhaps the biggest oversight has been what should be the most important.  The actual sound quality.  To be fair, Apple leads the way in sound quality by such a massive margin that perhaps it deliberately didn’t focus on this area - it’s competitiors still haven’t caught up.

It is only recently that the sound chips have been replaced.  The orignal   Woflson chipset making way for Cirrus Logic audio codecs.  The jury is pretty much out on whether this sounds better or worse but the sound is still great on properly encoded mp3 files.

So what’s next?  Well the devices continue to merge with other technologies to become fully blown multi-media applications.  This seems to be what consumers demand, but, I for one, hope the mp3 player will continue to evolve as a stand alone device and that somewhere along the line a trun portable audiophile quality mp3 player will emerge.  Fingers crosssed.

Check out our store for an up to date list of the best mp3 players and a great selection of cheap ipods including, hopefully, the cheap ipod touch.