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I finally broke down and bought a new MP3 player – my 3rd player.

I bought a 128mb one 3 years ago, and then shortly after the iPod Shuffle.

I can’t remember the brand of the 128mb player off hand, but it was alright. It had a display and bookmarks; unfortunately every once in a while – maybe once a week – the player would malfunction and gun shots would sound off in my ears. The first time it happened I ducked.

The Shuffle is quite a good mp3 player except that it lacks a display and the fast forward feature is limited. I like listening to audio books and when the audio book is segmented into 8 hour pieces and I sometimes fall asleep listening, a fastforward option and a display is of high importance.

The m250 is the player I chose to buy 2 weeks ago mainly based on the following criteria:

• price – $100 CAD for a 2 gig player isn’t bad, I paid that for the 128mb player 3 years ago.
• display – I need a display to see which segment of the book I am on
• fastforward – fastforward will go slowly at first and speed up over time to a max speed of 1 minute a second – I think. You can also reverse to a previous segment if you want to get to a section closer to the end.
• battery life and type – I wanted a AAA battery player with a long life. At 19 hours per AAA this fit the bill. It’s nice to just have a package of AAAs when traveling, rather than to have to find a power outlet, adapter and cable.
• capacity – 2 gig allows me to store quite a bit – bigger is usually better.
• physical size – the player is small enough to fit into a pocket while traveling without any hassles
• reviews – the Amazon reviews rated this item highly (3.5/5 stars) … but I should have read the negative reviews

After 4 days of listening, I managed to finish Dark Tower 4 Wizard and Glass, but the player no longer works. It starts and freezes on the screen that displays the firmware version. I was only halfway through my vacation when this happened!

I did a web search for the problem and unfortunately it appears common and requires that the player be replaced.

The really unfortunate thing is that even the replacements are likely to have the same problem. It appears that a lot of people have experienced the exact same issue: one guy bought 3 players which all had the same problem, got a replacement for each and within a week all 3 were in the same state.

As much as this player fits my requirements I am not sure I want to risk replacing it and having the replacement break down again. It seems like some people have success with replacements so I think I’ll give it one more chance. It does come with a decent 2 year warranty and I really loathe having to read all the reviews to find an mp3 player that meets my specs again. If the replacement fails, I might just bite the bullet and pay double for the ipod nano … even though it charges through a computer or base, which is un-ideal for my uses.