What MP3 player?

[Sequoia]

I'm after replacing a rather ancient, and bulky, 20GB player, and would appreciate model suggestions.


Criteria are :-

- at least 20GB, rock-bottom minimum. More (say 60GB) is preferred.
- only interested in audio. No interest at all in video, photos, games, internet, etc
- sound quality is paramount
- because of the above point, high quality MP3 files MUST be supported
- I will prepare ALL files myself. Download capability (or services) are of zero interest
- because of the above point, either easy to use transfer software, or the ability to just copy files on
- decent battery life, and the ability to acquire, and user-change battery.


I don't care about brand, and I'm not interested at all in "fashion". If iPods are still currently in-vogue, I neither know nor care.

I will be using third party earphones, so anything that comes included is irrelevant - they'll get dumped in a drawer somewhere.

Price : within the bounds of sensible, whatever it takes to get the above.


Any suggestions that narrow my focus (or point at things to avoid) would be welcomed.

 

[Sequoia]

He said he had no interest in video playback.

Absolutely right. The only thing I'm interested in is high capacity, high quality MP3 audio playback. I don't even care if it has a colour screen, as long as I can navigate the contents, and pick tracks or albums, to play. I wouldn't reject a player because it had a colour screen, or video playback, etc., but I wouldn't buy it for that, or pay a single penny more for it, because it'll never be used.

The Zen Vision:M looks interesting, especially as it looks like a 60GB version is imminent. But the lack of user-changeable battery? That's a very serious black mark, in my book. It does turn out, however, that you can get AA-based "extenders", to recharge on-the-fly. I still badly resent not being able to do my own battery replacement, though, as and when it becomes necessary.