I have a nitrus, ive never owned any other mp3 player so i can't really compare to ipod, zen, etc. However, the sound quality is good enough for my casual uses, and the eq is handy to adjust the sound for your type of music. Make sure you always have good headphones to go along what your portable no matter what because generally the ones provided suck (in the case of the nitrus it's the sennheiser mx300 i think). If you're paying more than 130$ for a nitrus than forget it, it's not worth it. Most stores retail it for around 180-200, but I got it back when there were some rebates for it that took the price down. Make sure you look at other things you may need your mp3 player for such as flash based/hd, fm, voice recording, can be used as a hd, etc. Unfortunetly, the nitrus requires u to use their software to drag and drop music, and does not allow you to store additional files besides music. Basically, this is a very limited mp3 player and it's not worth buying unless it costs less than 130. You're better off with a different player.