Continuing on my mp3 rant from yesterday, I'll get a little more specific.

For my uses, I was hunting for something small, lightweight, and inexpensive. I eventually narrowed my choices to something along the lines of Apple's Shuffle or Nano. I looked at some comparisons with other products - particularly Sandisk's Clip and Fuze. Not only are they significantly cheaper, they are also stylish and have several nice features that the Shuffle and Nano lack.

If you are considering an ultra-small mp3 player like the Shuffle, take a look at this Shuffle and Clip comparison.

I was interested in something slightly larger with a screen. Here's my quick summary of how the Sandisk Fuze and iPod Nano differ:

















** An 8gb Nano costs $120. The 8gb Fuze costs $75. ($199 vs $85 retail).
** The Fuze has a microSD slot (that means you can add an additional 8gb of storage for $15).
** the Nano is about 15% smaller and lighter than the Fuze.
** the Nano has a slightly higher resolution screen than the Fuze.
** the Fuze has far better sound quality (this only matters with good headphones).
** Unlike the Nano, the Fuze includes an FM radio and voice recorder
** The Nano requires iTunes. The Fuze uses simple drag-n-drop like a USB thumb drive.

I ended up choosing the Fuze (in my hand above, displaying a picture I took). I bought the small 2gb model for under $30 (refurbished). I'll probably add a 16 or 32 GB microSD card later. I use it mostly for music, but also have some pictures and youtube videos (using the DownloadHelper firefox addon). It's been fantastic so far!

One other item worth mentioning is the open-source firmware RockBox which you can put on a wide range of mp3 players. It adds many audio features, visual themes, and even games to your mp3 player! As soon as the official release comes out for the Fuze, I'll be using it ;)