To MP3 or Not to MP3

Ah the petty worries of the indecisive one. "She who hesitates is, well ... me," Dan always says. And he's right. The most recent mock crisis? MP3 players.

The Bay had a sale on a Sony 8GB player starting last Friday. I hemmed and hawed so long that by the time I went on Sunday the players had all gone too (although there was a chance they might have had more available today). So then I was regretting not going ... only not terribly badly since I'd never actually made up my mind I wanted one in the first place. It's just that it was such a good buy - $50 instead of $140 - and a decent little player too from all accounts, with an astonishing 45 hours of battery life. But then today I noticed on Tiger Direct that a 30GB Zune is on sale for $125. What's a girl to do?

I should explain that I already have a perfectly functional little Creative Zen player. It has decent sound, runs conveniently off AAA batteries, and includes a nice FM radio. Its only downfall, really, is that it's only 1GB or 10-12 cd's. That's rather limiting because I really don't know ahead of time what I'm going to be in the mood to listen to (the fact I'm a little lazy about unloading and reloading it, even though it's a very simple process, doesn't help either). I should also add that I don't even listen to it that much! At school I often want to hear the sound of nothing other than peace and quiet on my breaks. On my walks I want to hear the birds and the waves (and, if necessary, the cars!). At home I have a whole (big) drawer full of real cd's, plus more files still on my computers. The only time I really use it extensively is on our drives to Kingston ... maybe three or four times a year!

So what's a girl to do and why is she worrying about it at all? The innate and frugal Scot in me wants a bargain. But do I want more storage space? Better quality? Longer battery life? And why on earth am I stressing at all when I have enough sitting in my bank account to go right out and buy the most expensive Ipod Touch - not even on sale? [BTW I was reading an interesting article in Real Simple (Oct. 2008) about happiness that made the distinction between satisficers, who are content to make a decision once their basic criteria have been met and maximizers, who can't make a decision until they've examined every possible option - and even then may be anxious about their choices. Guess which one's happier ... and guess which one's me!]

In the end, I'm not getting any MP3 player at all right now. And maybe that's for the best. My horoscope did say that "your current obsession is a chocolate soldier that looks formidable entering the battlefield, but melts in the heat of passion" after all! And maybe instead of looking for bargains, I need to just define my criteria, get what meets them, and be happy.

So, here's my criteria for when I'm really ready to upgrade:

• big enough to hold lots of music and some movies too - minimum 32GB
  
• nice big screen (not easily scratched or fingerprinted) for when I do want to watch a movie
• great battery life (maybe including the ability to use disposables in a pinch); wind-up or solar powered would be extra cool, but that's a bit far-fetched for the near future I think!
• a simple USB connection - NO proprietary cables!!!
• something that plays pretty much everything you can throw at it - mp3, wav, flac, wmv, avi, divx, xvid etc. etc. etc. so no stupid conversions are required
• wireless internet for simple surfing, email checking etc.
  
• the ability for a few little games would be sort of nice, as would the ability to read my excel-file booklist

Hmmm ... sounds sort of like an Ipod Touch - made by somebody other than Apple. Well we'll just have to see what the technology gurus at Sony, Creative, Microsoft and others come up with. In the meantime, it looks like my little Creative Zen and I will be starting off another school year together.