We have two mp3 players. One is a Sansa player, and mine is Coby... the Sansa is a very nice player, the Coby less so.

Both have 512 meg of memory built in, and SD card slots. I just picked up a 2 gig SD card for my wife for $30 and plan on picking up one for myself in the next few weeks. Her player integrates the extra memory very well... she essentially has a 2.5 gig player... cost me about $110 total. Mine will be $80, but I haven't had it as long.

The Coby doesn't integrate the expanded memory at all... it won't remember where you're at on the sd card, it always reverts back to the last thing you listened to in the main memory... this really sucked for audio books, so I moved the music to the card, and use the main for audio books.

I've got the memory card full of music, and I keep an audio book in the main memory.

I have several mp3 cd players... They vary widely in quality... Some ARE slow to start up... but start up faster the second or subsequent times with the same CD. Some are very fast even if you change cds. And skip resistance varies a lot. They also don't fit in the pocket of my windbreaker.

I love the Sandisk Sansa player... if it wouldn't end up in divorce, I'd swipe it from the wife. And the ear buds are the best I've found. I bought a pair of Phillips ear buds for $30 that don't come anywhere near the sound quality.

This one