Bangover wrote:flash based is the way forward, in a year or so Im guessing with the development of sold state storage everythings going to be flash based

Soild-state disks are going to take quite a few years to find their way into mainstream gadgets. A 32Gb disk costs well over £200.

Battery's can be replaced in Archos models....
Got a spare one using original still lasts about 5hours.

swizzlenuts wrote:I recommend not an Ipod, and don't go for a super huge hard drive. They suck for when you want to jog with them; after a while the hard drive starts to fuck up.

Hmm, that sounds concerning - would you count 30gb as super huge?

I want to store a large proportion of my collection on one of these things, otherwise it serves no considerably better function than my cassette and CD walkmans.

Do all these things have internal batteries rather than running on replaceable batteries? That seems really stupid and annoying, especially if you're going away for a couple of days.

As i said before Archos dvr players are what you want.

You can buy replaceable battery's when they die and have a large capacity i have a 60gb and was near to filling it.

My internal battery lasts really well - but you can always take a charger plug with you if going away for a few days.

Creative are the best in my experience. I recently downsized from the old Creative Zen Touch (20gb) to a Creative Zen V Plus (8gb). My only qualm with going down to an 8gb player was not having all my tracks available to me but to be honest it hasn't bothered me. Much prefer the size of the V plus as it just pops in your pocket instead of having to wear it on your belt like a ponce. It is actually smaller than the new ipod nanos (8gb) and it plays video and has an fm radio built in. One charge lasts about 12 hours of playback.