I am really behind the game when it comes to personal and portable music. Like years behind. I went to Best Buy today and felt like I was in the future. The portable music devices I currently have are 1- a sony cd player (the kind w the strap that wraps around your waist.... oh yeah); 2- a 256mb, yes I said MB, Rio mp3 player. 3- Sadly, I even still have my walkman -see footnote. Over the last several years my music and mp3's have expanded uncontrollably into a discombobulated mess. They are on several computers, hard drives, disks, my phone, cd's, and even mix tapes. It is my mission to get everything in one place again.

So.... please help! What should I get? I probably need at least 64GB, probably more as I went through a 'techno' stage in the early 2000's and d/l'ed like 100 albums before Napster and Audiogalaxy went bust. I like small and easy to use. Never been an Ipad/Iphone/Iwhatever guy, but I'm willing to take the Apple plunge if need be.

Footnote: I still can't get rid of my walkman even though it doesn't work. This may be a psychological condition for all I know, but I just can't toss it. See it was one of those fancy shmancy 'auto reverse' types, pretty sweet for it's time. Even had a rechargeable battery oh yeah. One day I dropped it, and from that day onward when you'd press the autoreverse button, it would play songs backwards. We used to listen to all kinds of music (lots of Ozzy) backwards hoping to hear some cool things. Most was just pretty funny. And yes, it *kindof* says 'my sweet satan' in Stairway to Heaven. I really need to give it up though. Somewhere somehow my brain is telling me I can fix it and re live the back-masking days in all their glory.

Personally, for me I have a little 2Gb Sansa clip. They make 'em in some larger capacities now, but the reason I use it is because it works with Rhapsody.

BUT...if your not up for the subscription music thing, iPod touch's are pretty nice, though the higher data storage models can get pricey. Other than that, there's not a whole lot out there (that I know of) besides using an Android-based phone with a large microSD card.

Take the plunge get an iPod, you can pick up a 4th generation iPod touch used for 100-200 depending on the size. You can obviously get a larger 3rd generation for a little less since they cannot run iOS6 but that's not an issue if you just want music and size.

Alternatively if you were just looking to play music in the car there is always a USB stick and a new deck if yours doesn't have the option for USB.

I'm holding out on ipods because I prefer buttons that I can feel, without having to look at the screen. I drive and listen to podcasts.

I've got a gen 1 zune. It's a brick, but it's still running strong and it has buttons.

Well, being an iphone guy. I am pretty sold out to the ipod and itunes.

Plus most mid to upper tier aftermarket car stereos are coming with ipod control... a handful of them are coming with control of music devices built off the android platform, but iOS is still the biggest. It's what happens when a single mfg OWNS the market.

an AUX port does the same thing....

My stereo has a USB port that won' recognize a zune, but it's great for charging it.

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to need at least 32gb, likely much more. Does this mean Apple is my only option? For some reason I've been resisting the Apple bug.... I did see an 'ipod classic' on Bestbuy.com that was a 160gb. At the store I saw a nice sized sony player, but it was only 4gb.

pretty much you have to go apple if you're looking for a portable music device that's worth any salt.

^wrong.

Samsung Galaxy Player for one. Creative Zen x-fi3 for a second, even though the x-fi is not the player that the original Zens were.

Dude...New avatar?