Suggestion for a new Mp3 player?

Hey all,

Well, sadly, my 4th Gen iPod broke. The whole exclaimation point on folder deal. I tried everything, disk mode, diagnositic mode, and it is so far messed up that Windows will give the climes letting me know it connected...and disconnected, within a span of about twenty seconds. I am taking it that the hard drive is gone as most of the tests (that I allowed to finish within a reasonable amount of time) passed.

So, I was thinking of getting an 8 gig iPod nano. However, there ARE other Mp3 players out there and in truth I have a three month span before I can really do anything anyway.

I guess my first question is (maybe you know of rumors better than me), will there be a bigger iPod Nano in the near future (i.e. a 12 gig one)? Or are they basically staying with 8 gigs and make adjustments on that (touch screen?)

I am also looking at the Sansa's...in which it plays music, videos, etc, is 8 gigs, at a fraction of a price, AND can use mini-SD technology that could theoritically hold even more. Would that be a good player to buy (the 8 gig Sansa?)

Of course, I have interest in other Mp3 players as well.

Here are some of the things I would like:
Plays Audio (Mp3, WMA, audible). I don't care about video.
The screen makes it relatively easy to tell that song. There should be a backlight (that can be turned off and on)
Flash memory (to avoid what happened to my poor iPod), at least 8 gigs. I would love something bigger though.
Small enough to place into a jean pocket (my iPod did nicely).
Costs no more than 250 U.S.D.
If possible, let it have disk mode where I can just drag and drop the files easily. ITunes is so annoying.

I think that's it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I love my sansa, but I don't use it for much more than music and occasionally voice recording. Really the only problem I have with it is that the firmware seems to be doing funky things lately, so I might have to do a factory restore. (Plug it in and it says the file directory is corrupted. =/)

And you'll be able to drag and drop with a sansa, but it has strange quirks you'll have to work around, like making sure show hidden files and folders is on, and then making your music folder unhidden.

That's one of the benefits of Ipods: the software that comes with it is practically guaranteed.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

iPods are great when it comes to the practicality. The touch wheel, the system of organisation, the navigation... it was hard for me to let go of my iPod mini because it was so great and easy to use.

Ever since I've pulled out my old MP3 players and tried to use them, but none of them feel as great as the iPod. My mum took the liberty to buy me an MP3 player from China but unfortunately, it was very ("Chinese") dodgy. The menu is very homebrew and the battery only lasts an hour! I use it today to avoid offending mum though.

But yeh mortis, the Sansa is pretty good and atm might be best suited for you. My brother has the e270 model and with expandable memory, it makes for a pretty good and small player. The only problems you might face are the lack of software comparable to iTunes in terms of organising, renaming and etc (though you don't like iTunes so that's okay then), as well as the weird firmware updates that seem to screw around with the MP3 (as mentioned by Skexis). As for drag-and-drop, you can do that too by changing the settings to take files via this method, if uploading songs via WMP ain't your thang.

That's all I've got really -_-'

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.