MP3 player recommendations?

[Two monkeys from a Tzu..ps]

So today I got an 8gb Sansa Clip+ mp3 player from Amazon:
- USB Cable doesn't work.
- Earphone port has dodgy contacts.
- 3 different PC (running Vista, Win 7 and XP) couldn't find the player in MSC or MTP mode even after going through all the troubleshooting tips on the sandisk homepage.

The only reason this isnt the worst electronic device I've ever bought is that I once owned an electric water boiler with three modes: On, Off, Spontaneous Combustion.

At least Amazon has a sane return policy and I can send that pos back for a full refund.

So what should I buy instead?

[The Sero]

The only reason this isnt the worst electronic device I've ever bought is that I once owned an electric water boiler with three modes: On, Off, Spontaneous Combustion.

I want one..... xD

As for the mp3 player, I myself like Creative Zen. They're not cheap, but they're still cheaper than an ipod or something, plus as it's creative the headphones that they package with them are really nice quality. They do small ones with nice big hard drives, and fantastically, SD card slots USB mini pc connection, as they all should be. (I hate custom connectors -.-). Radio if you want, but I myself don't use it that much. Wireless connection on some of them. Most of them play video and show pictures as well.
Don't think there is anything huge I've missed of the list.......

[Carbon.ps]

I had a couple of creative products that really let me down and has both to be returned and I now refuse to buy from them as a company. Personally I believe an ipod is the easiest choice.

[The Sero]

See, I've have that experience from apple. Rarely owned anything apple, but it always breaks on me, either straight away most likely, or if not then within a day of the warranty going out of date And the amount of friends with easy break ipods as well....

[Colt.ps]

still got my fully working 2nd gen ipod. Claud has a mini - 4 years old. personally, there is no choice.

apple kit generally - it's the most reliable tech i've ever bought - and the only thing that bust (my lap top after several years because i dropped it) was replaced on insurance no loss. all win.

[Dr.Strangelove.ps]

anything that involves just simply dragging and dropping without the use of any third party software is always a good bet

as most do encourage you to install their software, when it isn't needed

what about your mobile phone?

[satanpenguin]

Sorry to hear that, Tzu. I own a 4GB Clip and am very happy with it so far (about 6 months use). Never had a problem charging or detecting it, although I only use it as mass storage (not MTP) and from Linux.

As for the headphones, I have no idea. Didn't even take a look at them since I already had a couple nice sennheisers

If I had to suggest something (other than the obligatory iPods) I'd take a look at http://anythingbutipod.com. They publish nice reviews and comparison tables.

edit: personally I'm thinking on getting something from Cowon (the D2+ or later), Samsung or iRiver. I haven't yet decided because I'm waiting to see which one fulfills my needs first: mass storage capability, at least FLAC and ogg/vorbis support in addition to mp3, and 40-60GB flash capacity. The cowon D2+ with an extra 32GB SD card could do this more or less (and I hear it has a 52h battery life), but I'm not in a hurry so I wait to see what comes next

[Hawk.ps]

got a Zune HD myself, of which I'm very content.

Haven't really tried many other types of mp3 players, but I heard those from Archos should be pretty good. (Well, they kinda interested me for some reason)

Any minimum requirements?
Lossless formats, video playback, etc?

[Post Script.ps]

I still have my iPod from 3/4 years ago. Works like a charm which is surprising the amount of times I've dropped it (once from hip height onto a pavement ).

With regards to drag and drop features there are plenty of workarounds for the iPod.

[Two monkeys from a Tzu..ps]

Thanks for the tips mates!
In many ways the clip+ looked like the ideal player for me.
Nothing fancy, 8gb, just mp3 playback, a readable display, files can be transferred by drag'n'drop, can be upgraded with microSDHC cards and dirt cheap, I picked it up for 52 Euro.
It even is mp3 player of the year on the site satanpenguin linked too.
Unfortunatly it seems that price came with shoddy construction which makes me wary to pick up the same player again. A bit of research has shown me that the failure rate of these things seems too high. Sure most people write to complain on the internet but when you see an review on Amazon were someone got send a broken device two times in a row you get suspecious.
The first faq on sandisks customer support page was directly related to my detection problems ( and totally unhelpful).
I'm just not used to electronics not lasting for decades, I still have stuff like my working Super Nintendo or a 13 year old minidisc player.

Funnily enough after I started replying to the thread earlier today (I saved my text because my brother came over to check his email since his internet broke down) I recieved some unexpected financial windfall for this year so stuff like the Ipod Nano 8gb and Cowon d2+ are now in a pricerange I can consider.
More options lead to more research.

Edit: special thanks to satanpenguin, who I can't give a cookie to since the forum thinks I want to delete/edit his post whenever I try that and thats not something I would do (yet).

[SleeperService.ps]

mobile phone with 8GB sd card. Find my blackberry fine for listening to music

[satanpenguin]

Edit: special thanks to satanpenguin, who I can't give a cookie to since the forum thinks I want to delete/edit his post whenever I try that and thats not something I would do (yet).

Haha the forum must have some AI plugin that marked me as the evil person I am lol

[Two monkeys from a Tzu..ps]

Haha the forum must have some AI plugin that marked me as the evil person I am lol

You may be joking but today as I wanted to give you another cookie for your new post the view in my attached screenshot greeted me.
You should probably change your colonge so the forum can no longer sniff out the evil.

Actually it said something like Could not find phrase 'post_thanks'. when i clicked on the button, afterwards it vanished.

As for the mobile phone idea, I use my mobile mostly for emergencies like 'car breaks down/in the woods/in the dark/it starts snowing/the wolves are coming for me' situations. When I was a teenager we used to make fun of all the 'important' people lugging around mobiles to show off and somehow that mindset stayed with me.

Now that the frustration has cooled of a little I'll wait till I get my money back from Amazon until I start searching again.

[Hentai.ps]

I use my smartphone Nokia 5530 XpressMusic as audio player, it is beyond my expectations even in that modality.

[Warning Level = Bert]

I found the COwan D2 was really good hardy littl unit bit fiddly to learn how to use but its sitll rbiloliant, with a good quality headphones its purely awesome

[Seedy_George]

I'm afraid that I'm an apple guy - had my iPod 8gb nano for the last.. 3 or more years, maybe. Gosh. Serves me well, and I haven't even filled it up yet.

[Seric.ps]

Creative here, had a zen sleek when that came out years ago, had many years faithful service out of it. Then decided I wanted something bigger and went with a zen vision:m - which has fantastic battery life, a vibrant screen, oodles of features and real easy to use. It can be used with creatives software (which is supplied with it) or you can couple it up and use a drag and drop style with explorer. Best player I've had. Problem is with apple is although they can be great with style and function, they like to keep themselves to themselves. Proprietary formats, connectors, software etc. That and the price has always put me off apple.

[The Sero]

Creative here, had a zen sleek when that came out years ago, had many years faithful service out of it. Then decided I wanted something bigger and went with a zen vision:m - which has fantastic battery life, a vibrant screen, oodles of features and real easy to use. It can be used with creatives software (which is supplied with it) or you can couple it up and use a drag and drop style with explorer. Best player I've had. Problem is with apple is although they can be great with style and function, they like to keep themselves to themselves. Proprietary formats, connectors, software etc. That and the price has always put me off apple.

Hurrah, there is someone here who shares my views xD Quite alot actually

Would give you a cookie, but it failed

[Sicks.ps]

the only time i've had an ipod break is when i let my mum borrow it and she dropped it in a puddle but she bought me a new one for the following christmas xD

i know they arent as cheap as others but the only bad experience ive had with ipods is itunes but you only need to use that to upload the songs from pc to ipod, also with my ipod it has 80gb memory and i can use it as an external hard drive if i choose, i have 2000+ songs on it right now and its only 20gb of music, ive used it to hold films and tv shows etc, i have one of those fancy ones that lets you watch films and such on it

personally id recommend it if you can afford it, never had problems with mine apart from itunes being a crap mp3 player on your pc but i use winamp for that anyway, just boot up itunes to upload new songs to the ipod or rip songs from cd and convert them to mp3 easily, also there is a handy button to "consolodate music library" which automatically moves the files and organises them in itunes directory and sorts by artist/album which is quite nice too, but actually playing songs on it, seems to do nasty things with my sound card

[Warning Level = Bert]

the isssue i have with iPods is tha titunes can mes syoru ocmputer up and is a btich to kill, in term sof stoppign it doign stuff in the background... i disliek programs that act like viruses :p