Portable gadgets have anyway become popular. With the expanding coverage of WiFi (wireless Internet access), portable gadgets are become even more popular. Portable gadgets include laptops, portable media players, netbooks or the Ultra Mobile PC. It has become easy to download content from the Internet. Conversion to digital formats, for instance DVD or VCD movies, has become easy with special software. The portable devices have become not only travel companions, but also a part of the work and day to day functions. The portable devices include digital audio players, portable video players, digital video recorders and personal digital assistant.

A portable media player (PMP) is an electronic device that can store and play digital media. It is a digital audio player that can also display images as well as play videos. Cell phones which have these capabilities are also called portable media player. The first widely sold portable media player was Archos in 2002. Almost all portable media players come with MP3 audio format while some also support the Windows Media Audio (WMA), WAV and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC).

OELD or LCD is usually used to display images. With the help of accessories, some of these players can also record video. JPEG format for display of images is used in all the players. File formats including PNG, TIFF and GIF are compatible with some players like the iPod series. MPEG-4 video format is supported by most of the players. Some others support the AVI and Windows Media Video (WMV). Transfer of files between the computer and players is possible with most players. These portable devices are manufactured and marketed by many electronic firms. For instance a French company, Archos, offers portable video players, digital audio players, personal digital assistant and digital video recorders. Archos released its Generation 5 series of portable media players in 2007. The series included Archos 705 WiFi 160GB .

The hard drive, flash memory or microdrive stores the data. Storage capacities have reached 32 GB for flash memory based PMPs and 320 GB for the hard drive PMPs. The PMPs storage capacity can be expanded and contents can be directly transferred from external devices with memory Sticks, Secure Digital card and CompactFlash. This provision is available in a number of players. The size of the screen ranges up to 7 inches. Resolutions too vary and go up to WVGA. The color depth is 16-bit but could reach 24-bit in some players. Touch screens are introduced and PMPs are increasingly coming out with this feature. Other features that have been introduced in recent years are a simple camera, text readers, editors and game emulation.