I've owned various players, all w/ varying reviews. It really depends what you want to do w/ it. If you want something for training (running for me), I like my Creative Labs MUVO 256MB. It's lighter than a pack of gum and VERY easy to add songs. It's a USB so drag and drop. I hate most of the s/w packages so I kept it simple. I also use it at work to move big presentation files and datasheets (6 MB or bigger) between machines and for customer presentations.
If you like playlists, like orgazinzing your songs w/ s/w, and want to have A LOT of songs w/ you, I wouldn't go any less than an mini iPOD. I don't have one but covet it. If that's not enough, the 15 GB iPODs are nice.
The new video/MP3 players are interesting, but I don't know if they have as good a GUI as the iPOD. And if you want the video portion, despite what Apple claims publicly, they ARE working on the video iPOD.
