I own a Sony Walkman which works well if you don't mind paying a premium I guess. Since your current MP3 player was cheap I'm guessing Sony might be out of your budget but I'll tell you about it anyway.

I own a NWZ-A828 because I wanted bluetooth capabilities - something which I don't really use any more but it was neat when I used it. They came with bluetooth headphones so I could have the walkman in the living room while me and the headphones were in the kitchen. They have a range, of course. My house is pretty small so I can go to more rooms before it starts losing signal. It was especially useful when I was still reliant on public transport since I didn't end up with wires tangling around all my bags and portfolios and stuff. The walkman's battery was understandably shorter when using the bluetooth capabilities but it tended to outlive the headphones battery life by a considerable amount anyway. I thiiiink the headphones lasted around 4 hours, I don't really remember now.

These days I just tend to use a cassette adaptor so I can listen to my walkman through my car's stereo.

I've owned mine for at least 2 years now and it's still working perfectly fine. It's got a decent battery life of around 10 hours continuous play (non-bluetooth). The sony website advertises 36 hours so I guess I'm not charging mine long enough? I don't know. A problem earlier Sony MP3 players had was their need for proprietary software but I'm pretty sure they're all drag and drop now. Mine is at any rate.

The only problem is it's very tricky to get music videos on my particular model but since I don't put music videos on it anyway it's a non-issue for me.

It's got four buttons on the front - the large play/pause button, a thin bar-type button that surrounds that and forms the directional/ff/rw buttons, a small menu/power button and a likewise small back/home button. The volume button is on the side and can be knocked, which can be annoying. It does have a hold switch which is pretty standard of course but considering how easy the volume is to knock I thought I'd mention it anyway. I've found the interface pretty easy to navigate myself, not that different from a standard mobile phone in it's menu page. I only really use the Music and Options bits anyway.

Of course being sony it's got a proprietary cable. But hey, that's pretty standard for them. Irritating, but typical.

Um yeah this turned out to be a bit of an essay didn't it.

In before Apple/iPod hatred.

Speaking of, being that I'm not much of an audophile when it comes to actual sound quality, and really just wanted an MP3 player with a heap of space for all my music, the iPod Classic is good for that. Stores heaps, easy to nagivate, plus you have the option of putting movies on there for those long road trips. Not to mention a lot of stereo systems these days have an iPod jack of some form, meaning I can take my iPod to a friends place to show them the new album I just got.

Of course, there are some downsides. Using iTunes to start. I hate this program, I really do. It's a resource hog, it's crap to navigate. Yeah, there are some freeware alternatives, but I've found all of them to be worse which I thought to be impossible. Some iPods are also incredibly fragile, liable to break at the drop of a hat. Mines lasted through a lot, so I may have just gotten lucky with a good one, but I've seen drops of mere millimitres on to carpet which resulted in a massive screen crack. And as previously mentioned, they are not the greatest for sound quality. Quite passable, but not the greatest. If your music is encoded at a decent rate, it's generally not noticble unless you've got a good ear for music.

To sum up the iPod Classic;

Pros:
- Heaps of space, although you do have a decent choice in sizes when it comes to iPods so there's one for the gentleman with a smaller collection.
- Easy to navigate via Artist, Album, Genre, ect. The iPod Wheel takes a little getting used to but then becomes second nature.
- Is kind of the industry standard, so compatible with lots of things, and a good range of accessories if you need them.
- Compatble with MOST major music formats.

Cons:
- iTunes. It's a horrid monster, but nessecary to get that music to your iPod. Also has a terrible habit of taking it upon itself to re-arrange all your music.
- Will either be made of adamantium and be totally indestructable, or will shatter in a slight breeze.
- If you're massive on your music and have a good ear for it, you may not like the quality you hear. Speaking of, doesn't support FLAC (Excluding older iPods via third-party software).
- Can be a bit pricey depending on location brought from. Part of that money is for brand name.
- You may have to deal with people who find it their moral duty to inform you of your unwise choice in music players, and how much it is comparable to a vacuum cleaner (That is to say, sucks) especially when placed next to theirs.

Terg: Might I humbly suggest that you keep a weather eye on Woot.com? I bought a nice and stylish Sansa Clip there a few weeks back for about $25. They're even having a Woot-off today, so a good deal could come up any minute now.

Let's not forget that if you plug your iPod into someone else's iTunes it can delete all your tracks 😀

I dunno why you would do that but I know several people who've been caught out by that one

I've used the Philips GoGear series for a while now. I got my first one around 2005 or so, and it only just died this year. Little thing held up longer than I thought it would.

They tend to be cheaper than Sony's and I was able to get a small 4 GB one for $40.

My first mp3 player was a 4th generation iPod 20GB. Obviously things are a lot more advanced from there but I think in the Classic range the differences are only incremental, ie. colour display and video support. Could be mistaken, haven't looked into it too much. For general usage, I can't say I could complain, but what really got me was the fact that I ended up spending £200 on it and it only lasted two years. The warranty had expired in one year so I'd have to pay even more if I wanted to get it repaired. With all the trouble iTunes put me through too (as mentioned earlier in the thread it's horrible bloatware, I've heard it runs better on MacOS than Windows but I can't confirm) the whole experience was enough to put me off Apple for good.

As an aside, is there any reason (apart from maybe the price) to get an iPod Touch rather than an iPhone? The former just seems to be the latter but lacking in functionality. I don't intend to buy either, just not sure I understand the marketing angle on that.

Following that I downsized to a Creative Zen 4GB, which I've now owned for about two years or so iirc. The battery life is about what you would expect, and it has some decent additional features such as a microphone and an SD expansion slot. It only cost me £50 and I can't say I have any complaints with it. Zen also make various larger-sized players to compete with the classic and touch ranges of iPods, but I can't say I've had any experience with them.