I've had 2-3 Sandisk players, new and refurbished, ALL of them eventually started shorting out / playing music at super high speeds / shutting off randomly / not turning back on (despite that the battery did charge) So I HIGHLY recommend staying away from that brand.They're awesome until they break, but, none of mine lasted me more than 3 months ~_~
I've had 2 other brand players too but I can't for the life of me remember which >.<... The one was total shit and died on me within the first DAY. (Was a no-name-ish brand, though) and the other was quite awesome. Lasted me until I dropped / cracked the screen <_<;
As for my iPod 1st Gen 512MB Shuffle - That thing STILL works like a charm. Even though it's what, 10 years old? The iPod Touch is... I'm in love with it. Literally *makes out with it* STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!
lol, I currently use a Sandisk (the one that broke today). This one has last me 8 months, longer than any of my other MP3 players, so I'm decent with it, but this one is the third one, after two warranty replacements within one year (as it's a 1 year warranty anyway). It's been six months since the warranty expired. First one had a loose audio jack. Second one, I corrupted the firmware. This one, the volume control button came loose and I can no longer adjust volume. To be honest, it's the only non-off-brand one I have owned, so I'm pretty clueless about other brands. But I'm happy with Sandisk's customer service? xD Other than that, yeah, too many broke on me and warranty is over, so I think it's time for me to move on from Sandisk.
I've had horrible experiences with off-brands too. xD One, the audio jack came loose, fell off into the depths of the case, and made my brother go like, "Okay, never buying those again."
I want to know the other "quite awesome" one~ Though I need a small compact one that can take a couple good beatings. The bigger ones with larger screens tends to have a larger chance of screen cracking when dropped, and I drop my MP3 players a lot. I tend to physically abuse my MP3 players a lot.
I do love iPods and how they just keep on working, but the thing is... the main issues I've had were all with iTunes, which prompted me to stay away from iPods in general. Plus, as I said, I like the compact ones, so I rather stay away from the large ones like the iPod Touch, which as far as I know are the only ones that are jailbreak-able without a headache.