If you are runniing Windows, the Creative Lab folks make one with nice features -- you can get an FM radio and a voice recorder along with the MP3 playback. They don't work with Apple computers. The voice recorder can be handy if you like to capture tunes at sessions. The players are significantly less expensive than the iPod. I don't know how easy they are to use. The iPod is very easy to find the music you want to listen to, as long as you get one with a screen. I think the iPod Shuffle doesn't have a screen, so you just listen to whatever it serves up or that you can find by clicking through your files. The bigger models are only needed if you want to store photos and video. For listening to music, I would get one of the middle models -- maybe the iPod mini? -- I don't have all the specs of all the models in front of me.

I use an iRiver MP3 player right now because it has the radio and voice recorder features and works with my Mac. Unfortuneately, it has a fairly small memory and I'm tired of changing out the MP3s I have on it so often. They have models with bigger memory now, but don't seem to make one with the extra features anymore. Get one with at least a gig of memory, and 2 or 4 gigs would be even better. I'm probably going to get an iPod to get more memory and some accessories to add the functionality I want. They have a good looking car kit that plugs into your lighter and sends music to your car radio, which means I won't have to put a CD player in my car and carry around a bunch of CDs.

The iPod will download any MP3 you have on your computer, at least if you are using the iTunes software. I don't know if there is iTunes for Windows. On my Mac, iTunes makes it very easy to make MP3 files of my CD collection. I've saved most of my collection as MP3s and I put them on my portable player easily. I've never downloaded any music from the Apple store, or anywhere else. I just buy the CD and turn the tracks into MP3s. The iPod will link up to my computer and automatically load all my music files.

John Peekstok