Thanks for the input so far!
Yeah I've been strongly leaning more towards an ipod alternative (I don't really like apple products), but it is the 'mainstream' brand and I don't want to spend $200+ on some underground piece of crap.
Yeah, I just heard about the Samsung p3 today, and from what I've read it has some neat features like you can use bluetooth to synch it with your phone and use it answer calls and basically make it a cellphone. It also has a Sensme/Genius type software, and supports divx and other video codecs (which gives it extra points). The only drawback I've heard are the headphones it comes with are not great and poor customer support.