Sansa! The answer to iTunes.

iTunes sucks. Flat out crappy software. iPods, on the other hand, are great pieces of hardware. But iTunes id so bad, that there is an entire community of people desperate for options. (see anythingbutipod.com)

Sandisk may be here to save the day. The Sansas are great devices with better, if not perfect, software. I have both an e280 - which is being phased out - and a new Fuze.

The good:
Sansas can be loaded with tracks through Windows Explorer. I do most of my music work on a new Toshiba laptop, packing a core2duo proc. iTunes runs about as quickly as Photoshop CS3 would on a 486dx. Then, it hacks my albums up into a total mess on any iPod I've ever had. (For the record: I have had, at one point or another, an iTouch, a Nano, and 2 iPods) I like electronic music. Which means that I have many DJ albums, in which each track has a different artist, but it is meant to be a continuous mix by said DJ. iTunes is not smart enough to figure that out. My mixes all end up labeled as 12 or 13 different albums. There goes listening to a full album as it was meant to be listened to. Sansas work (almost) perfectly in this respect.

Sansas work with WMA tracks. Ever rip a CD into Windows, and try to put it on an iPod? iTunes has to reconvert every track into AAC, since iPods don't play nice with WMA. And don't forget that every track you rip now has to live on your HD twice, unless you want to live with the new organization system imposed by iTunes, and you want to do everything with that music in iTunes.

Sansas easily match the iPod in terms of sound quality. Yup, you read right. Most players have crappy sound compared to an iPod. The sansa players are equivalent, and the earbuds that Sandisk ships with them are BETTER than the factory iPod buds. I have been offered $50 aftermarket Sony earbuds as a trade for my Sansa buds, and turned the trade down. Well done on the buds, Sandisk.

The Bad:
I do have to knock Sandisk for the video features on these players. They will not play MP4 video out of the box. That sucks. (Yeah, I know that was supposed to be added to the Fuze, but I've tried to convert videos using many different settings, and the only successful conversions I've done have been in Sansa Media Converter.) Adding generic MP4 support would be a huge bonus.

All said it is a great option for Windows users who are tired of the crap they have to deal with on the iPod.