Or to put the thread topic another way, I might call it "Choosing a new portable media player". That's boring, though, so we shall discuss how I may modernize my pockets herein.

History: I've been using a first-generation Zune since the winter of 2006/2007. It seems to have finally bit the dust yesterday, when I selected a track to play and it entered a reboot loop rather than greeting me with glorious music. Seems like Microsoft no longer support the original 30GB Zune and I won't mind having a device that doesn't tether me to Windows, so it's time to upgrade to a new, modern device.

Therefore, anyone have neat suggestions? I'd like at least as much storage as I've got on the Zune (so 30GB), and it shouldn't require any terribly specific software, as I want to be able to put data on it without rebooting my machine out of Linux. Good format support (flac, ogg) and storage expandability (via SD cards usually) are both good pluses.
Price is not a large consideration, as long as it's reasonable when considering the features offered.

I'm currently leaning toward the Cn J3 [emoticon attack.. that's C-o-w-o-n], which is available with up to 32GB of storage and is expandable via MicroSD. It's also very sexy looking.

Enough about me. What do y'all think?

Well it wouldn't fit your specs, but my brother's creative zen is a small, simple solution that's worked for years despite being dropped, thrown, stepped on, and otherwise abused.

The Creative devices are indeed pretty nice. Looks like they're in rather short supply, though. Most of the ones on Amazon are refurbs or just old models.

Kerm had mentioned the Samsung YP-P3 on IRC, but the low capacity (8GB max) kinda makes it a no-go. I can't find any place that actually sells it, either.

I bought a 64GB Zen X-Fi 2 recently, and have been relatively happy with it. Unlike Creative's earlier players it's a mass storage device (MSD) rather than a media transfer protocol (MTP) device which makes synchronisation a bit of a pain (I have to wait three minutes or so after adding or removing files whilst it rebuilds its library and track ratings are not synchronised). It also only supports 8,000 tracks so is really designed for people who want to have all their music as FLAC (on which note there is no Ogg support). The touch screen interface is massively inferior to having physical buttons, too, but as that's the current trend with small electronics devices I guess I'll have to get used to it.

On the plus side, it is cheap and the sound quality is up to the usual Creative standards.

It does indeed look nice. However, it's only available used on Amazon, and Creative's online store claims it's out of stock in the 64GB model. I can't find any reputable sellers for it, which is unusual. Mayhap Creative just hate the North American market..

I don't mind a pure touch screen interface, but one of the things I liked about the J3 was its selection of hardware buttons beyond a mere power/hold switch: it also has fast forward/rewind and volume controls in hardware.

I believe the YP-P3 comes in 8GB and 16GB; my YP-P2 came in 4GB and 8GB (I have the 8GB). There might easily be a successor to the YP-P3 by now that I just don't know about, but I've found it to be an amazingly solid device.

Ah, so it does come in 16GB. Unfortunately, that's still not enough capacity for me. Availability still seems to be an issue as well, particularly for the 16GB model.

Summarizing the thread, then:

• Cowon J3: 32GB capacity, MicroSD expandable. Advertised 64 hour battery, OLED display.
  
• Zen X-Fi2: 32GB capacity, MicroSD expandable. Advertised 25 hour battery, TFT display. Hard to find the 32GB model online.
  
• YP-P3: 16GB capacity, not expandable. Advertised 30 hour battery, TFT display. Hard to find 16GB model online.

A few other options which I didn't consider very seriously (neither of which support FLAC):

• Zune HD: 64GB capacity, not expandable. Advertised 33 hour battery, OLED display. Requires Zune software to sync, Windows-only. Web browser and other applications available.
  
• iPod Touch: 64GB capacity, not expandable. Advertised 40 hour battery, unspecified (non-OLED) display. Rich application marketplace, but I refuse to support the walled-garden approach. Requires iTunes or similar software, reverse-engineered support available in many programs.

The J3 seems like the winner here. Both the YP-P3 and X-Fi2 suffer from availability issues, and the P3's capacity doesn't meet my needs. The Zune HD would be a contender were it not for the Windows software requirement, and I just won't buy an Apple product in this case.

Cost-wise, the J3 is most expensive of the three main choices, but offers similarly premium features. With a 32GB MicroSD card to hit the same 64GB capacity as the Zune or iPod, the cost comes to a little over $300, which is less than both the Zune and iPod (each around $350).

There's the conclusion. Unless anyone comes up with some compelling new point that I missed, I expect to place an order for the J3 and an SD card later this evening.

Two days of painful waiting are complete (not really that painful), and I'm quite impressed with this thing, even before turning it on. It feels like it came from the future (Korea is something like 12 hours ahead of me, I guess..):

I found the packaging rather neat. Pretty standard to start out.

They hid the CD with their software in the base of the jar-thing. Clever!

And evidently one can invert the upper piece of this packaging on top of the base (which has slots on the bottom to mate with the narrow top) to.. grow plants in it? Huh.

Comparing the Zune and the J3. You can see some of the Zune guts in the background there (hard drive and some caging).

The J3 is very compact, and I'm impressed with the weight- I can't feel a difference between it and the Zune with the hard drive removed. You can't really see it in my photo, but the bottom part of the front bezel has a brushed-metal finish.

All this, and I haven't even powered it up yet.. more to come later, maybe, with my impressions of the software.

Nice

Did you go with the 32GB microSD card to go with it, Tari? It looks very nice.

That I did. I noted on IRC that it's a little bit scary that there are 32 billion pieces of information fitting in this thing that one could eat and never even notice. It even fits in your nose!

32 billion! That's over.... 31billion. But seriously that is a pretty slick looking device there Tari, can wait to hear more once you got it fired up and have had time to play with it some more.

I have an RCA M4804R and it's been pretty good to me.

And wow that is one awesome looking MP3 player! O_O

Not to hijack your topic, but I found a "broken" 8GB YP-P2 on eBay for $5 with $20 shipping (seller avoiding eBay fees, meh) that is only broken because the headphone jack soldering is loose, something that I've repaired on mine two or three times. Woot for a "new" MP3 player plus already having spare parts for cheap!