MP3 players let people take their music anywhere.
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When an application stores data, it must encode that data in a specific way so that other programs know how to open it. File extensions are tags that say, "The data is encoded according to these rules." MP3 files are all encoded in the same way, so there is no difference between an MP3 file on a BlackBerry and an MP3 file on a Motorola Razr.
MP3
MP3 files are almost as old as personal computing. Invented by the Faunhofer Institute, MP3s are the third version of the MPEG encoding compression standard. The different compression standards strike a different balance between efficiency and playback quality. MP3s are widely used for storing music because they are the most efficient of the three MPEG standards. In other words, MP3s take up less space than other formats. MP3 is a lossy compression standard, meaning it discards some data during the compression process.
BlackBerry
BlackBerrys are one of the more common smartphones on the market. Targeted at business users, BlackBerrys have an application store that offers many different MP3 players, some designed specifically for the BlackBerry and others offered on many platforms.
All of these MP3 players should be able to play the same MP3 files. The differences lie primarily in their user interfaces and extra features, so choosing an MP3 player is largely a matter of personal preference.
Razr
The Motorola Razr, which stopped being manufactured in 2007 when the Razr 2 was released, was one of the original ultra-slim cell phones. It was capable of playing MP3s, but with only 6 MB of memory available to users, it couldn't hold more than two or three songs at a time. Although it may seem limited by modern standards, the Razr's MP3 player was considered a nice feature when the Razr came out in 2003.
Comparison
Comparing the BlackBerry with the Motorola Razr is inherently unfair. First, BlackBerrys are a line of phones that are constantly being upgraded, while the Razr was a specific model. Motorola has other phones, such as the Moto Q or Defy, that have similar capabilities to newer BlackBerrys, as of 2011.
Also, the Razr was produced before the era of mobile computing. Smart phones have permanently changed people's expectations of what a high-end cell phone should be able to do.
References
Photo Credits
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