As I set here, I think about my latest mp3 player that's nestled deep within my coat pocket, and I think to myself, "How long will it last?"   My luck with mp3 players hasn't been the greatest.  In fact, it's actually been down right craptastic.   My mp3 players have a life span of 3 months to 1 year before they die.  I'm not sure why they die in most cases, but at least I am becoming quite accustomed to figuring the bad mp3 players from the good ones.

The very first mp3 player I ever owned was 1gb iLo player that's sold exclusively at Wal Mart. At the time I bought this player in 2006 it was $80, but now you can probably get it for $20. This player had it's good and points.

The Good

+ Expandable memory slot. In my case, 1gb just isn't enough. I would purchase a 1-2gb SD card just for the chance to add more music to it.

+ Long lasting and durable: This was my longest lasting player; surviving for up to a two years before I finally tossed it, because the little thing had become so beaten that keeping it just wasn't feasible.

The Bad

- Batteries: The problem with players like these is that they take a lot of batteries, so be prepared to purchase those little AAA batteries for 8 hours of music per battery. I must have spent more money on the batteries alone than the player

- Slow loading time between tracks: Hit the next song button, and expect to wait at least five seconds for the next song to play

- Random play wasn't very random:  Sure, you could put this baby on shuffle, and it would shuffle your songs, but then it would never shuffle them again.  This might not be a big deal to some, but for me it was a very big deal.

Rating 2.5 out of 5

The second mp3 player I purchased was the Philips iGo 2gb player, and that cost me around $90 (give or take).  While this player was 'fancier' than the iLo, and could hold pictures and play videos; I was not particularly fond of it.

The Good

+ More internal memory than the iLo

+ Had a small screen of which to view images and movies

+ Sound quality was decent

+ No hideously long pauses between skipped tracks

The Bad

- No expandable memory

- Screen was really tiny

- Stopped working way too early.

While the iGo was better in some ways than the iLo; it was not the end all or be all of mp3 players.  While the non-expandable memory may not have been a huge deal, the low internal memory was.  When this broke, I never bought another one like this again.

Rating 3/5

The next player that I purchased was the 4gb Creative Zen for $75.  By this time mp3 players were becoming cheaper, and more affordable.  This player was so far the best one, but even it had one huge flaw that prevented me from buying another one like it.  Before I get to that, I'll go over what was good about this player.

+ 4gb of internal memory: Making this quite a bit of memory for a cheaper mp3 player.

+ Large screen than the iGo, plus images were much more vivid and colorful

+ Sound quality was good.

+ The player had an expandable memory slot.

+ Player was very durable.

The Bad

- The expandable memory slot was a piece of junk!  Most mp3 players with expandable memory will integrate the external and internal memory together.  In layman's terms; this means that songs from the internal memory and the external memory will combine into one area.

With the Zen, however, this didn't happen!  To play the music on your SD card you had to go to a special area on the menu.  Then you had to choose the album, and forget random play, or playing all the songs!  Nope, that just wouldn't happen.

Rating 3.25 out of 5

The Insignia Pilot is a Best Buy exclusive, and this player cost around $80.  It had 4gb of internal memory and room for external memory.  This player had the largest screen of all the players I owned, and I was fond of the scroll wheel this player had.

+ Good size internal memory at 4gb

+ External memory option was also workable.  At this time SD cards were cheap, and an 8gb card was only $20.  Thus, I had a 12gb player in the end.

+ Large screen

+ Easy enough menu interface

+ Battery was simple enough to change.

The Bad

- Sound quality was average at best.  This is one of those mp3 players that you don't want to use your good, expensive headphones/earbuds on; unless you want to hear static, and crackling sounds

- Sure the battery was easy to chance, but what's the point when you can't even buy the battery?

When this player died I wanted to get another one, because after all it could hold the most music.  Unfortunately when this player died, the Best Buy here stopped selling them.

Rating

4/5

For a small player, this thing packed ALOT of sound power.  It wasn't fancy; you couldn't watch videos on it, and the menus were nothing fancy, but what the Sansa lacked in fancy stuff it all but made up for in price, size, and sound quality.

The Good

+ Cheap! An 8gb version of this player goes for $49.99

+ Small and easy to travel with.  This player will easily fit anywhere you want it to.

+ Durable:  I've tossed this thing against the floor, against walls, and it didn't break.

+ The sound quality on this player is outstanding!  You wouldn't think it with the size of this player, but the low ends were low, the high ends were great, and the midtones were even wonderful.  You could use your expensive earbuds/headphones on this player and not be disappointed

The Bad

- No room for more memory

Rating 4.75 out of 5

Right now I currently own a Sony mp3 walkman.  At this time I can't yet make a viable review about this player.  In many ways this player was better than the Sansa, but at the same time it has no external memory slot.  When it comes to players, this is a real killer to me.  I have well over 20gb of music on my computer, and the less I have to switch music, the better.

I do like the sound quality of this player though, and the thing did come with a two year replacement plan.

Rating pending, but may be 4.5/5.