Just this afternoon my 3month old IPod touch suffered a tragic, concrete related, fate. Rather than see this as the cap to a truly awful day I instead see this as an opportunity. An opportunity to finally get ITunes off my computer. However I have no idea about the portable mp3 player market beyond that apple have it more or less cornered.

Seeing as plenty of people here seem fairly savvy consumers it seemed like a good place to get some advice. So if anyone has any alternatives then I would be much obliged in hearing them. My budget is between £100 and £200 pounds, though I could stretch further depending on how long I’m willing to use this ancient screenless mp3 player from before the cold war.

If you want something really small I recommend the Sansa Clip+ 8GB with a microSD card to expand the memory.

Cowon products seem to get really favorable reviews, but I've never had one.

I'm no anti-technologist, but I'm waiting for a mobile device that has the capacity to carry all my music! Prog heads can only fit like 10 albums on the iPod before filling it up.

I have a Clip+, and although I like it a lot, the battery life is cut in half when I use a microSD card. That pisses me off, because the card slot is one reason I bought it.

Do you have that issue?

The Sansa is a good recommendation, as are Samsung and Ericsson (all have superior sound quality to the Ipod's) Ipods are just style over substance in all cases. One thing you have to remember is if the music sounds naff on one of those devices then it's likely because 1: You're using naff quality mp3's (192kbps & below which I think is what itunes sells as standard) or 2: You're using naff quality headphones.

Definitely look into decent headphones such as the Denons, you can usually pick up the previous year's top model for a nice price (mine cost me £50 & were end of stock.)

At the moment I'm using a Samsung YP-R0 with a set of Denon C751's. I wouldn't recommend that exact model of Samsung (due to a bug that newer models lack) but the high end Samsungs are my favourite out of the mp3 players I've used over the years.

Holy crap, I've been charging it after every use because I only use it for exercise, but that sucks! I'm not even planning on using it without the card so I guess I wouldn't have even known what the life should be like. I guess I'll have to get back to you, but this doesn't sound like some weird issue only you have...

Don't buy a Zune, if you're thinking about it. Get a WP7 phone, it has everything a Zune has, plus a lot more. ;)

It lasts about 12-14 hours without the card, but only about six hours with the card, even if there's no data on it. I listen to it pretty much all day at work most days, so I just don't use a card.

I've looked into it somewhat, and I hear inconsistent reports. Some people report a similar problem, and other people say they notice very little difference. I posted on Anything But iPod looking for some hard details, but the thread became a pointless debate about custom firmware after exactly one post. I probably should have expected that.

I used to have a 1GB Sansa Express, and the card didn't make any difference in the battery life.

Cheers for the advice guys, will definitely have a look at the stuff you recommended, the sansa clip in particular seems to be very good value on a simple money to size ratio. Even if the battery life is cut in half I could I suspect live with seven and a half hours. Never seemed to get that much solid play out of the iPod, although it's hard to say with all the other stuff I used to run on it. Oh hey I'm talking about it in the past tense. Must be getting over its loss :P

If you just want something simple and don't mind the battery issues I mentioned, the Clip+ is a very good choice. It's clean, stripped-down and inexpensive. I'm not sure how the sound quality compares to your iPod, but I think it's pretty good (certainly better than my old Express).

I think it takes up to a 32GB card, but I'm not sure if a bigger card would hurt the battery life any further.

Of course, with your £200 budget, you could also get something a lot fancier. :p

True, but really my main concern was space. The people who suggested to me that the ipod will magically transform itself from a simple mp3 player to an amazing all encompasing device were very convincing though, especially since they usually know what they are talking about when it comes to music stuff. The budget was really because I didn't want somthing with only 3gb of space which would require tedious in and out switching.

My sister gave me a Sanza Fuze for a graduation present, and I love it so much - I can't compare, I've never had an MP3 player before, but it has an enormous battery life and I have something like forty hours of music on it now.

How does something like this sit with you? Cowon X7 It does storage space, sound quality, and battery life, with a vague nod in the direction of video playback should the fancy take you.

If the model it's replacing is anything to go by it should pretty hardy, but if your prone to dropping stuff a case couldn't go amiss. I've seen the 120gb model at £205

I don't know how good Zunes are, but given how nice Zune Pass is I'd definitely take a look. I can say from experience that the Cowons can do everything but are 1) bulky and 2) clunky (shitty interface). My ex had an iRiver and it died after 2 years of heavy use. None of those things seem to last over a year or two.

I did a fair bit of research recently on the topic and settled on a Sony Walkman. Very impressed and happy with it...simple, sleek and effective, good sound quality. Cost about 90 bucks for the 4GB model.