One player to rule them all ....

[Panther_Gunn]

 ... or something like that.

Sadly for me, it seems the time has finally come for me to find a replacement of my no-longer-as-reliable iPod (2nd Gen -- it's got Firewire, fer cryin' out loud).  The audio jack took a hit this last trip (y'all didn't even know I was gone ), the battery is only good for about 4 hours of play time (and not enough to synch a large amount of music), and the little wired controller (which I *loved*) has developed a short, so getting sound out of both sides is iffy.  I think I got this right around the time I joined FR, so there's an extra bit of nostalgia attached.

My problem in finding a suitable replacement is that I like physical controls -- touchscreen controls don't like me much, and I don't care for them, either.  Which rules out the last remaining iPod model, and a whole slew of others.  I'd also like to feel like I can safely hold the thing without it slipping between my fingers like some of these dinky things I'm seeing.  It needs to support MP3's and M3U playlists.  And, of course, I'd like it to be built to last.  I hate replacing tech because of shoddy materials.

I've looked through several high-end ones, and aside from some of them costing the same as a car payment (or more!), too many are touch screen, or have bad reviews of either poor construction, OS issues, or other things that are hard to overlook.  Unexpectedly, I seem to have narrowed it down to a SanDisk Clip Sport Plus (32 Gb).  But (and this is where y'all come in), I thought I'd solicit advice from the masses.  I think we got the kids some SanDisk players many years ago, and they were not as friendly as they could have been, and these latest models are a bit on the small (physical) side.  I'm also not sure I'm sold on an integrated clip.

Does anyone else have any suggestions that I may have overlooked?  A lot of the listings I found weren't the best at showing where charger and audio jacks were.  Any firsthand experience with some of these would be appreciated.

[BentonGrey]

Hmm, sorry PG, I wish I could help, but I just use my phone as my audio player.  It's really the primary thing I use it for, and it's got a touch screen and such.  I'm quite out of the loop in what other devices are worth anything these days.  Good luck!