SUMMARY: Go to TARGET, they have good selection of models. Bring a MP3 Disc (with various file types -- 128Kbps, 192Kbps, VBR) and test 'em out. The 2 Sony models are probably the best bang for the buck right now.
---- Long Story ---
There are quite a few models 5+ out there--with a bunch having already been discontinued. KOSS, Memorex, Magnovox, and Sony seem to be the players right now. Target carried quite a few of them (down to only the KOSS and 2 Sony's the last time I was there). None of them are as well featured as the portable (headphone) cd-mp3 players that are out right now.
The 2 latest models from Sony (The sports one for $150 that's funky looking @ Target and CC and there's a greyish - blue one for $99 at target and walmart) are pretty nice. I brought a MP3 Disc w/ me to test and except for a 30second load time when you first put the disc in, they both did very well on playback. They handled 192Kbps MP3 files w/o a problem. I didn't try VBR, I don't have any that I know of but I'd guess that it'd work. Sound quality was about the same on both units, with a slight advantage to the $150 model.
The older sony model had problems w/ > 128KBps so these new models address that. The $99 model displays MP3 ID information but the screen space is limited and it takes a while to see the whole song title/artist info. The $150 model has a much more informative display but it doesn't have a Tape deck (IIRC). I think the big difference in price comes to that display on the $150 model.
The Memorex model that I purchasd and was later discontinued had some nice features but it would skip randomly. It also had a noisy CD unit -- louder than some 16x drives in your PC. I returned it.
The Magnvox model (KMart carried it) was nice but it did NOT display any MP3 Information only track 01..99 etc. And was $99 at the time, about $20 more than the Memorex thad did TONS more (Digital Tuner, Remote Control, ID3 Information, etc).
The low end KOSS ($49.) has an analogue tuner, but is otherwise OK. The sound quality is crap (tiny speakers and very thin sounding). Also only displays track01...track99 But, for $49 it's not bad.
Sorry I don't know the model numbers and I only purchased/returned the one Memorex--because in the store it worked fine... I didn't find out about the skipping until I spent some hours listening to tunes. The others I played w/ in the store @ Target. I'm waiting for the $99 sony to go on sale because it's the best one out (for my needs) right now and seems like it's much better build quality than the memorex I purchased back when.