i had a horrible dream that arnold schwarzenneger, as mr. freeze, fiddled with the air conditioning of this house and froze it all in ice, and i left my ipod in there and i was really pissed off so i asked jimmy fallon, who was the former president of the US, if he lost anything in the ice and he said no and i was even more mad. i woke up and realized how dependent i am on my ipod.
that said, i don't know about other mp3 players, but the ipod is pretty solid if you're not bouncin it around. mine froze up on me when i ran with it attached to my arm, but when i hold it its okay, but i don't like doing that so i just don't run with it. get a warranty. and itunes is really a lot better than i thought it'd be. i can't see what anyone would have against it, aside from not being able to import from the ipod to the computer. that does kind of suck i guess, but its rarely a huge inconvenience.