Gave my son a
1GB Sandisk for Christmas, runs on a single triple A battery and usually lasts him 3-4 weeks depending on usage.
I was able to plug it into my laptop, friends laptop, and the kids Desktop and was able to transfer MP3's without a single hickup.
It is backlit with soft blue lighting, easy to navigate the menus via small thumb stick.
Has a sleep timer for listening to when going to bed so as not to waste battery.
The size is about that of a large fat thumb, and for the 89.00 spent on it and a first MP3 I was impressed.
The iPods are pretty nice, fairly popular and currently the target of many thieves these days so much so that there are more and more news stories popping up about people having the crap beat out of them (mugged) over an iPod.
I can't remember what news channel I was watching about a month or so ago, but they were doing a story about the popularity of the iPod and as they were about to wrap up on the story the sound guy was mugged and beat pretty good just outside the front doors of the studio because he was wearing *White* ear phones (supposibly the key indicator they look for), if I remember they got away with the iPod and he suggested changing your earphones to none white ones if you chose an iPod.
*edit* Forgot to add the link and also mention that it has a built in FM tuner as well.
The iPod does however have a ton of aftermarket accessories available for them.
I just noticed that sandisk now has a newer
model MP3 player out that allows you to expand the memory via SD memory cards, that could prove to be very handy, buy a 1.0/1.5/2.0 GB memory stick(s) and set up all kinds of different music content or data storage.
Benefit I can see is if the SD Card fails you do not have to replace the entire MP3 unit.
I have only played with the iPods and the Sandisk so I can not offer much in regards to brands.
