You can see my article about buying an MP3 player on a budget at The Dollar Stretcher now.
In a related note, I was a bit annoyed to see that SanDisk has apparently entered the Acquisition-Minded Rivals Death Spiral. I’ve always thought that SanDisk’s Sansa line of flash-based MP3 players were vastly superior to Apple’s flash-based iPods in both quality and price (a 8 GB iPod nano will cost you $199, whereas an 8 GB Sansa Fuze will set you back only $129, and comes with numerous extra features besides), so I’d be disappointed to see SanDisk and the Sansa give up the ghost. I mean, if I want a high-capacity flash-based MP3 player that’s not an iPod, what am I supposed to get instead? A Zune? A Creative Zen? Don’t make me laugh.
Ah, the marketplace, she is a cruel mistress.
-JM