I'm going on another cross-country cycling trip this summer, and I'm in the market for a good, solid MP3 player.
Disclaimer: I'm a software guy who likes my devices to be good quality and long lasting. I'm by no means an audiophile, hardware tech, or professional MP3 player reviewer. All of my research was done using Google, and the only MP3 player I've owned is the Sansa e260 v2.
Requirements
Note: These are my personal requirements. They effectively eliminated a *lot* of products in the MP3 market.
1. Rockbox Support
First and foremost, I need rockbox support. Rockbox is a must-have FOSS firmware for MP3 players with a fantastic feature list. You can buy an MP3 player with terrific hardware design, but your experience can be absolutely ruined by poorly designed firmware. My old Sansa e260 was this way, but once I installed rockbox, it was like the device was freed from a software prison. And, of course--another benefit of it being open source--you can completely customize the look+feel of your MP3 player with other user's custom rockbox themes.
Here is a list of MP3 players (targets) and their support status for the Rockbox firmware.
2. Rugged Components that
. . . → Read More: My Search for The Best MP3 Player
