I have owned this product for approximately 3 years and in that time it has never stopped working. I bought the zen when I was at university because I spent alot of time in the library or walking between places. I originally chose it because I couldn't afford an ipod and this seemed the next best thing. I would say that my zen has been heavily used - at one point I was listening to it for several hours a day. It has always been reliable and the battery life is long and sound quality excellent. The actual 'zen' is really small and the plastic makes it light weight which is great because it means you can put it in your pocket and unlike other mp3 players, you don't need to worry so much about scratching the screen. In the time I've owned the zen, my sister has been through around 3 ipods which are not (in my opinion) as reliable.