I fried my Creative Zen Micro that I bought about 3 years ago and lunchtime at work has become unbearable because I can't escape the corporate mandated learning and market analysis BS channel that is pumped in the room. Occasionally someone puts the bunny ears on the TV and all I can get is "The View" and Rosie O'Donnell makes me puke.

So now I'm in a desperate hunt for a new mp3 player. I'm not much of a fan of iPod and looking for alternatives. So far I've shown interest in these three: Microsoft Zune, Toshiba Gigabeat, and the Creative Zen Vision M. I already checked out cNet for their suggestions but I'm looking for any other suggestions?

The Zune is the most horrific use of DRM to date on a portable music player. You can't even buy music that uses MICROSOFT'S OWN DRM. You have to use a completely new and incompatible DRM. It gets better! Any content you MAKE using the Zune will also have DRM put on it whether you like it or not. A portion of every proceed from sales of a Zune goes directly to Universal -- talk about a bad precedent for the industry.

Go with:
- Creative Zen Vision M
- Most Zens
- iRiver Clix
- Most iRivers
- mobi blue ... thing has ridiculous battery life too

Bought my son a Vision M and he loves it.

the zunes are ridiculously fat. why would anyone want an mp3 player that big?

I'm thinking of getting an Archos. Then you can watch videos on a nice big screen too....

I'm getting a SanDisk Sansa e250.
Plays videos.
Shows pictures.
Plays music.
Has FM radio
Can record FM radio
Has line-in recording
Can voice record

Works great in Linux.