These devices are usually small, both in physical size and internal storage capacity. An average flash player plays around 256 megabytes of music, somewhere around 62 songs, an average of six albums. However, larger flash based players are available; Apple’s iPod Nano is available up to 4 gigabytes, which translates to nearly 1,000 MP3s.
The biggest advantage of a flash memory digital audio player is that they can be handled rather roughly; there are no moving parts, so it’s perfectly fine to jog with one of these or do any other activity, as long as you don’t get it excessively wet. Of course, like anything else, flash memory will break down over time, so don’t expect one of these to last forever. Still, if you’re the type of person that occasionally drops their expensive electronics down a flight of stairs, you should definitely consider a flash based digital audio player. Note: the exception to this is the aforementioned iPod nano, which, according to Internet message boards, scratches extremely easily (this doesn’t affect the functionality, however).