pros and cons of owning an offline media player

 hey!

lately, a lot of the younger generations have experienced a pull to older forms of technology and media. for example, a lot of digital cameras are in use nowadays, and wired earbuds are making a comeback. along with wired earbuds, some have began to download media to experience offline and invest in MP3 players.

to me, MP3 players are everything that is great and good and beautiful. i doubt i'll ever go back. however, MP3 players may not be like that for everybody. here are some pros and cons of owning one!

  

benefits of owning a separate media player

disconnecting from the internet and social media

the first benefit is obvious: the lack of actually being online. many MP3 players lack the capability of WiFi, social media, or the internet. this can help you get off your phone, because you won't be pulled to scroll. less screen time can help you stay connected with the world around you.

playback literally ANYWHERE

a major benefit for me has been having the ability to play music without having to worry if i'll disconnect when traveling. whether you're in an airplane, at sea, in the forest, or on a hike, as long as you've got battery, you can play your media. 

working around school phone bans

i think i'm speaking for the majority of students everywhere-- phone bans suck. sure, they get us off our phones, but we lose our music and way of communication to friends and family during the day. although communication can't be solved with a simple MP3 player, many dedicated media players don't count as phones (especially the smaller ones). depending on the teacher and severity of the ban, you can still access your media during school.

waive ads

with many online streaming services, if you're not paying for premium, you experience an ad every few minutes. it's annoying. with an offline player, you don't experience any of that-- just the music and media you've downloaded. 

easier access to lesser-known songs

personally, i listen to a lot of smaller artists or unreleased songs. these can be nearly impossible to find on streaming services, and the main way to get to them is some sketchy post on Twitter or a sped-up video on YouTube. 

for example, i love my unreleased Lana Del Rey, and the only way i can listen through Spotify is through podcasts with random intros that keep getting taken down every few weeks. finding the audios through YouTube, or TikTok, downloading them, and adding them to my media player helps me find them a lot easier!

they're cute and cool

... seriously. look at these. (hover for their names, if i could find them)

 

get literally EVERYTHING you'd get with a subscription... for a lot less

i've said it before above, but most online platforms require you to purchase some form of premium to...

•  listen offline
• remove ads
• have higher or lossless audio quality.

when you purchase an MP3 player, you can do ALL OF THAT. AND SOMETIMES MORE. FOR FREE HOWEVER MUCH YOU PAID FOR YOUR PLAYER.

even the higher-quality media players that cost a little more than average end up paying for themselves. don't believe me? 

take an "Individual" Premium subscription from Spotify. $12.99/month. in a year, that's $155.88! one hundred fifty-five dollars (and then some)! even getting a modded iPod Classic on the cheaper end of the range would be about that price. sure, you get some awesome features while you're paying for Premium, but once the subscription's over you're left with nothing. an offline media player is a one-time purchase kind of deal. you buy it, and it keeps paying for itself. much longer than a month or a year! 
 

drawbacks of owning a separate media player 

for Spotify users, you lose the ability to setup Jams

in my opinion, the best feature about Spotify Premium was the ability to create Jams. Jams are sessions that users can add friends to. they can listen together on one phone or speaker, or remotely on their own phones (with Premium). 

these are nice, because you can share music together and save a lot of hassle creating a playlist or passing a single player/phone around to create a queue. with offline players, you don't get this luxury due to many lacking WiFi and streaming service capabilities.

it's not as easy to discover new songs

it's not impossible, but it's definitely not common to find new songs on your offline player. many streaming services such as Youtube Music, Spotify, and Pandora provide stations and recommendations for new music. again, the lack of WiFi and streaming services on these players don't let you do that.

however, i personally discover a lot of new music through friends, radio, and social media when i do scroll. in addition to that, i add full albums to my music collection when i like one or two songs from them, so sometimes i'll stumble across songs i've never heard of that i end up loving!

requirement of storage for offline players

this is probably the most important downside. if you switch to offline music, downloading files will take up space. if you use a smaller MP3 player or intend on downloading lots of media, you need to find a way to create storage. 

for example, one season of a single TV show could end up being 40 GB. my old phone that i use as a media player can hold only 64 GB. my current music collection (roughly 100 hours) is about 18 GB. depending on the quality of your audio files (.WAV, .FLAC, .MP3) and the compression, you could end up using even more space for less songs. 

however, depending on how you use your music player, this could be no problem! you can also invest in extra storage such as microSD cards, USB flash drives, and other external drives. many people also mod their players so they can hold more. a common example of this is the iPod Classic-- many switch the storage to 512GB or even 1TB. 

 

 in conclusion...

in my opinion, the pros of owning a media player definitely outweigh the cons. i'd much rather have to worry about storage than ads, limited skips, and playback. in a future article i'm going to write about how i turned my old phone into a dedicated media player. thank you for reading :)

with love, 

kierra