What exactly is an MP3 player? Pros / Cons needed!

I have never looked into these things. But, I hear you can store 400-600 minutes of music on a single cd w/ mp3's :eek:
I know mp3's are the audio files you rip from others on the net. My questions are:

1) Do you use regular cd-r discs?
2) Will an mp3 player play regular cd's?
3) Is it just like a cd player --> has a tuner and all the other gadgets most radios have :confused:

What are the pros / cons?

I hear you can get decent ones fro under $200 too! I have a Pioneer deck (8000) that I know can get $300+ for.

I hate only having 80 minutes of music on a single disc :(

Thanks for any help!

yes
yes
yes

It'll fit how ever many mp3s you can fit on a 700 MB Cd-R disc.

The amount of MP3s that you can fit onto 1 CDR will depend on the compression rate at which the music is compressed. The lower the rate the more you can fit but you sacrafice sound quality when you do this. Can you get a good one for under 200 bucks? hmm not really. My store sells a Jensen, which is dookie, a Kenwood which hasnt given me many problems yet, a Sony which is dookie as well and the Pioneer 8400MP which works great. My room mate has a high end Kenwood (which is $600) that is really awesome. I would plan on spending at least 300 on one if that is what your interested in. Just my 2 cents.

JVC makes one with a fancy color display and all that extra stuff with MP3 feature for $200. If I remember correctly, you won't get the front pre-amp outputs, but if you aren't planning to amp everything, it'll work ok.

You might wanna check out epinions.com and see what everybody there has to say.

Edit: I checked and the JVC unit does have 2 sets of amp outputs. Just in case anybody is interested... $200 is the price from Crutchfield.

efsleeper pretty much said it all.
if you do get one, i suggest getting a pack of cdrw's, ive wasted so many cd's, because every time i dl a new album i wanted to add some new, and delete some old. just make sure you dont finalize and close off the cd from future editing. also if youre not totally hung up on quality and you want more songs, use a program such as xing mp3 v1.5 with vbr encoding.
featurewise, they have everything a normal player would, if not more.. and yes they play regular cd's. but you shouldnt need to, just rip your cd's and you can fit up to probably 10 albums on one cdr. i dont see any cons, unless you decide on getting the jensen unit:D nothing but more music, what else could you ask for.

if you need assistance(using or getting) any programs lemme know.

I am actually almost sold on the Kenwood Kenwood KDC-MPV7019!

Seems to be an awesome deck with the features I am looking for.

I found this nice ass mp3 forum with LOTS of useful info:

http://pub56.ezboard.com/fhighwaymp3frm45

They have a forum dedicated to almost EVERY damn mp3 deck out there :p Pretty cool stuff!

Yeah, the only cons I can see is buying: AIWA, Jensen, or a Panasonic!

I went to a local shop and demoed my mp3 cd I made this morning and the Panasonic deck made it seem like I had all kinds of $hitty mp3's.