[ChrisCantSkate]

heh.. hating iPods.. thats funny. i have 0 complaints with mine. i had a Dell mp3 player and that thing was a iPod made cheaply. as with every other mp3 player ive seen. i mean you can sacrafice a nice screen for a griny 2 color one, but i'd rather pay an extra 50 for that, or you can sacrafice rechargable battery for $50 or 100 but why? batteries arnt cheap and its much more convenient to plug it in the wall. you can get a mp3 player that can only be used with headphones or you can get an iPod which has so many accessories not made by apple but by other companies such as stand alone speakers with iPod holder and charger(got one from sharper image that rocks) or they have the radio adapters, they have cd players that hook up to them, theres tons of stuff out there, and while yes some other ones "work" with some of that same stuff, i'd rather not shut any option out.

as for deleting files, theres an option somewhere in iTunes that turns that off. basically it only keeps files on your iPod you have on your computer, so if you reformat then it dosnt see them it erases them all... kinda horrible feature, but its just understanding the software.. i mean reading the manual

edit: i will say though that if a company can build a good one then go for it, i have not seen a single one out there and cant honestly reccomend anything but an iPod