Creative Zen (4GB)

Pros: Great sound quality, bright, clear screen, FM tuner, video quality is excellent

Cons: Limited video support, must convert a lot of video files.

Summary: I got this player to use at the gym for workouts, plus a nice pocketable video / photo display. I have a 40GB iPod photo which is great for my whole MP3 collection, but it's too bulky for excercise.

The Zen is quite impressive. Sound quality is crisp, clear and has a good volume range. The menu system is easy to navigate and very customizable. Video quality is outstanding for such a small screen. Very tiny pixels means sharp, clear images both for photos and video. I put the portable media version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on it, and it's surprisingly clear and fluid. (protected authorized digital copy from the DVD special edition).

The FM tuner is clear and gets quite good reception. Battery life is excellent in all modes.

Connection to the computer is pretty easy, provided your Windows Media Player is installed correctly. Mine was corrupted, so the Media Transfer Protocol wouldn't work, so I had to reinstall WMP to get my home computer to see the Zen. Once that was done, it was smooth sailing. Updated the firmware in a quick, painless process, so now I can transfer data from the SD card to the internal memory directly...very nice!

Overall, a great compact multimedia player. Very glad I went this route!