I bought the Sony NWZ S618f 8gb after seeing it in a sale at the local argos, and decided I wasn't going to follow the crowd and buy an ipod. From this point of view, this mp3 player is perfect for all of your needs. It has easy to use buttons pads, a well position volume rock and hold system as well as having the headphone jack on the top as opposed to the apple ipod design on the bottom which always annoyed me. Its battery life is good, and in the two years i used it served me well for long car journeys and bike rides, almost hitting 11 hours in some points. The radio station feature was of little use to me, but worked well without an external aerial and found the major stations remarkably easily. The windows media player software synced well, allowing my whole library to be on their in minutes with all the artwork . The ability to play protected music for me was a waste of a selling point, as by the time i bought this DRM protected WMA was already going out the window but i guess it could of had its uses. All in all a fabulous ipod nano competitor and definitely a good buy for half the price. But it was not all so good, with the screen being small and unclear for long periods of video use and compared to the sleek nano would reflect the sun badly forcing me to drain the battery with the high brightness settings. Its chunky demeanour to me was affectionate, but the casing soon became loose as dust and dirt entered the screen eventually leading to its downfall in a small drop onto wooden flooring. A good player, but no ipod.