It's a sony, in my opinion, you can't go wrong with a sony. I bought this product before the latest ipods came out, and to this date still use mine! It is around five years old and still works well! Now to the technical stuff, I found it was easy to use, i used the software which came with the device, it has been reported that this software slows your PC, but mine was not affected by it. The device (mine 20GB) stores around 14,000 tracks which is more than enough, and I think this version would store around 9,000, which again is more than enough! The battery life is also good, after a full charge it will last around 12 hours. The sony offers features like 100 most played and you can great ample playlists. It is also easy to browse through your library. There are some issues with the design, now with smaller MP3's available, It is rather chunky and I have had comments about my MP3, many thinking it was a phone! The screen is difficult to see in bright light, which is annoying... Finally it has great sound quality, I think its better than the ipod, and is certainly now cheaper than the ipod, and with build quality issues surrounding the ipod, the sony will not disappoint!