I've had very good luck with mine and friends also...Creative Zen mp3 players. They are reasonable, fairly easy to use, and yes, you can get them now with movies, pictures, music, data, etc. I actually went to BestBuy and asked for help. They don't work on commission, so I felt she gave me honest answers for what I wanted. She said basically that Ipods are the same thing, but you are paying for the name...the Kleenex of tissues sort of thing. Some people feel they need to pay for the "name brand", others are ok with saving a little money.
Just double check the software needed on your computer...our computer is about 4 years old and we were still running Windows 2000. All excited after I brought home my new mp3 player only to realize that it wouldn't run on Windows 2000, so I had to wait a few days for a techie friend to come and install Windows XP before I could even use my new "toy". How frustrating!!!