<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bp888:
CD Walkman type which plays, what else, CDs. CDs can either be the normal variety (audio CD which you buy at the stores or "ripped" from various audio CDs and made into a compilation) or MP3. Each CD (whether audio or MP3) has 710 MB. A typical audio CD contains about 10-15 songs in the uncompressed (normal audio) file format. A typical MP3-compressed track is, as I said earlier, about 3-5 MB so you can squeeze >100 tracks into one CD. I don't own one of these so I don't have a favorite but if you own a Notebook PC you already have one in your CD-ROM drive.
</font>
I have a Sony D-CJ01 MP3 CD Walkman, and I like it a lot: it lasts for a very long time on batteries (a day or two of almost constant play) and has excellent sound quality - some of the cheaper digital players I've tried have good technical specifications in terms of RAM, technology, size etc. but just don't sound good. The Sony is different.
When playing MP3s, it caches quite a lot of music ahead (thirty seconds, a minute maybe) and then actually stops spinning the CD; so I would imagine it is pretty shock-resistant.
It also comes with a backlit stick remote that lets you navigate through your disc.
One other big benefit of this sort of device is that it's really quick to 'download'. I have a 40-speed CD writer, and it only takes two minutes to burn ten or twelve hours of music from my MP3 collection.
All in all, recommended.