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CNET has an excellent section on MP3 players. My only gripe is that they don't to a good job of separating the new and available products from the older, no longer made ones.
As far as $150 goes, you're in something of a no-man's-land. All of the high capacity, disk based players are going to cost more than that. The iPod for instance starts at $300 for the 10GB version. That'll hold about 160 hours of CD quality music. Creative makes a cool line called the Nomad, there's a few different models, the cheapest is 20 GB (~320 hours) and should run you $230-250.
Contrary to what sph3re said, the flashed based players do not have lower sound quality. There's some spec (can't remember it exactly) that defines this, the iPod has 90 whatevers it is, Creative's models are 98, so they're better, but any good flash player will have 90 also. What they definitely don't do is hold the huge amounts of music that the disk players have. However, the upside is that they're really small, have no moving parts, and get a ton of usage out of single AA batteries. I bought my wife an iRiver iFP-395T for Christmas, about $200. It's got 512 megs, good for about 8 hours. She pretty much only uses her discman at the gym, so this tiny player (it's about 3.5" long, around or under 1" thick and wide) will be perfect for her. Don't get me wrong the iPod or Nomad aren't what I'd call big, but the flash players are so tiny you can wear 'em around you neck or on little arm bands that come with 'em.
The choice of disk vs. flash really comes down to what they're going to do with it. Does your friend have a huge selection of music he'd like to take along with him everywhere? Or does he go running or work out a lot? Would he be interested in using iTunes? You'll have to check individual products as far as the Mac thing goes. The iRiver one is compatible, but I can't speak for any others.
jeff
posted by 171.75.40...
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