While it is legal to play MP3's, choosing the right portable MP3 player for youself might be as hard as downloading them from an on-campus computer.

While MP3 players have a number of advantages over mini disc, compact disc and cassette walkman players, the are also limited by their capabilities and cost.

They can access a wide variety of music from the internet, they have no moving parts, are skip-proof and they allow anyone to manage their own music library. A USB connection allows the player to download music from a high-speed data port from a computer, nearly five times faster than some previous connections to computers.

While most MP3 players have similar capabilities, some units feature different abilities, depending on their design.

Students who do listen from the players have mixed reviews.

The sound quality is as good as a walkman, said Kaight Fallon (senior-aerospace engineering).

The quality of music, however, does not completely win over listeners.

The sound quality is very good said Pei Ling Chen (senior-international politics).

"I don't know about MP3 players," Chen said. "I think a lot can be improved on them.

One drawback to the players becomes apparent to some when they look at the number of songs stored on the units.

After listening to the quality of music, both Fallon and Chen said they were disappointed with the number of songs on the player. Depending on the length of a song, the S3 Rio 600 only stores about 12 songs. Both agree that 32MB of music is not enough.

The number of songs loaded on a player depends on the amount of memory free in the unit.

"I would prefer about 25 hours of music," Fallon said.

Two models currently on sale offer a different range of features for potential buyers, and they are the S3 Rio 600 and the NW-MS7 Sony Memory Stick Walkman.

Players are generally separated into two different groups of players, 32MB and 64MB players.

The Rio 600 is the successor to two previous players, Rio's 300 and 500. The 600 contains 32MB of on-board memory for up to one hour of near-CD quality digital audio music. The Rio features a backpack option that offers upgradeable memory, rechargeable battery and AC adapter.

The Sony, instead of containing internal memory uses a removable 64MB MagicGate Memory Stick for up to two hours of music.

Both units have LCD displays providing a listener with information such as track and artist title.

Another difference between the two is their price. The 32MB Rio sells for about $170 and the Sony with a 64MB memory stick sells for about $400.

Other differences consist of transfer times between computers and players and software requirments.

Some might prefer burning CDs from songs that are downloaded using MP3s from a computer for use with a portable CD player.

They are already prevalant and more affordable to college students, said Chen.