I bought this primarily because I didn't want to be part of the iPod explosion, and I wanted a cheaper alternative. I did my homework, compared prices and specs on eopinions.com, and decided to go with the Zen Touch.

In terms of what this player is capable of, it's just like an iPod photo. It holds music and data. 19.6 gigs are available, the rest is taken up by preloaded classical music. There's a button on the front called "random" that automatically plays a random playlist, and it comes very very handy.
The menu system is very similar to the iPods, except when you click "ok" on an artist, it'll bring up a sub-menu for you to choose "view albums", "view tracks", "add to selected" (playlist), etc. I personally find this somewhat annoying because there are no shortcuts to do things.

Ok, now the comes the annoying part. The fucking touchpad. This thing is nowhere as good as the apple's circlepad. Other reviews say you'll get used to it eventually, but I still find it hard. The pad varies in sensitivity, so it difficult to scroll only one line down. Sliding your thumb to the very top or bottom will scroll fast, and the center portion is for normal scrolling. You can make it so you can tap the pad instead of hitting "ok", but this is a bad idea since 90% of the time, it scrolls one up or down before getting the "ok", thus it gives you the wrong selection. Blah.

The top 3 brands on the market are Creative, Apple, and Dell. I've heard some horror stories about the DJ. I will exchange the Zen Touch for an iPod Photo 30GB asap.
I hope this review was somewhat helpful to those looking to buy an mp3 player. Post in here or PM me if you have ny more questions.

-Sunny

I've heard fantastic things about the Dell DJ.

I have an older Creative Zen. I love it for no other reason than I got 40GB for less than a 10GB I-pod (at the time). I haven't had any problems, but my brother-in-law had two hard drives go bad on the exact same mp3 player. He was in high school, though, maybe he was rougher on it than I am. Mine just sits in the car seat or in the cup holder on the treadmill.

I thought the sound was great too.

I have the zen micro, it's comparable to the iPod mini. I've been very happy with it.

Thanks for the post. I was really considering getting that very same mp3 player.