About MP3 Audio Books

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by suegold

What is an MP3 player's primary function? To play music, of course, would be the answer. Well, yes, but that doesn't mean that an MP3 player cannot perform other functions. Nowadays these smart players can be used to play different file formats, viewing photographs, videos and even playing games. But the very fact that they play MP3 files can make them versatile enough. MP3s need not necessarily be songs only.


This intelligent file format has been found to be incredibly useful for other purposes too – like MP3 audio books. However not all MP3 players are suitable for listening to audio books. If you are in the market for a player and are interested in audio books then there are certain things you need to be aware of.


First you should be aware of how much memory your player has and how much it can be expanded to (if it can be expanded at all.) This is an important feature anyway as the amount of storage space you have on the player will also help determine the price and, therefore, whether it fits your budget or not. Flash memory is used on most MP3 players. Some have slots for memory cards like MMC and SD/Mini SD/Micro SD. If you want to listen to MP3 audio books on your device then you should try and get as much storage capacity as possible. A minimum of 128MB is needed for some audio books.


Another thing you should check out is the maximum volume that the MP3 player can support. How loud a player can play will be an important feature as it will determine whether or not you can hear the audio book being played in noisy situations like most public spaces. Some MP3 players do have a feature that limits the volume so you might want to give these a miss if you are focusing on MP3 audio books. Test the volume at the shop before you commit yourself to a purchase.


Finally, perhaps, the most important feature an MP3 player needs to have in order to be audio book friendly is to be able to resume from wherever you left off. MP3 audio books are long MP3 files which you probably will not listen to all at one go. Therefore you will want to resume listening to the book file from the point you stopped at. Therefore your MP3 player needs to be able to do that rather than just return to the beginning of the file which can be extremely frustrating. Not all MP3 players can do this so you should check to see whether the one you are buying can or not. First stop and resume, then stop, switch off before switching on and resuming play. Also try replacing batteries.


MP3 audio books are a good idea and keeping them on your personal MP3 players can help you spend time on your commute, journey, gym or anything in a nice, relaxed manner. So go ahead and download, you might even win a free MP3 player!

Author, Steve Childens is owner of the website that offers you MP3 Audio Books. At this site you can get great discount audio books by top publishers at special low prices.

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