[quote user="rigadig"]
I would forget about ipods, they are vastly overpriced. If using it just for running, then one of the creative zen stone plus with speaker may be a good choice. The 4gb one is only £50 RRP and can be found cheaper. Although you probably have no need of the speaker, the models that do have the speaker can also play AAC (unprotected).
www.morgancomputers.co.uk are curretly selling the older zen v 4gb for £50 which has a better screen than the stone, it is tiny.
Both the zen stone and the zen v use standard mini usb cables and support drag and drop on windows xp and above. Also, the creative players can more than match the ipods for sound quality.
If you only want 2GB, then you should consider the new sandisk sansa clip players, they have had great reiews. The sansa clip I heard had excellent sound quality and it supports drag and drop and uses standard mini usb. the 2gb one is only about £30. If you can wait another month or so, the 4GB version is due out for about £50.
I have also been impressed with sonys B series stick walkmans for sound quality, they support drag and drop, and have the usb plug built in like a usb memory stick. they are only about £25 for the 2GB version. Like all sony players, they have outstanding battery life, and have the quick 3 min charge = 3 hours of playback quick charge which is really handy.
Finally, you might be able to hunt out some older cowon Iaudio flash players like the excellent U3 within your budget. they are more pricey, but have class leading sound quality (shames the ipod) they play loads of codecs such as ogg and even flac, use drag and drop, have very good battery life and use standard usb connectors. They don't tend to be sold on the high street though as they are not common in this country, but they have a reputation for the best sound quality, and not being tied to any proprietry software.
Features and sound wise for the price, the ipods don't even come close to any of these players.
A good place for loads of players is
www.advancedmp3players.co.uk
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For the price of the Nano I could get the Cowon iAudio 7 4 GB.... Just looked it up and it is easily available here in Belgium. Dont know anything bout this brand. Is this indeed better than the Ipod? Can I easily use ot to copy CDs onto? And can I easily hook it to my car audio system's aux input with a 3.5mm jack?
thanks!