A MP3 player for runners and joggers that works with Yahoo Music Unlimited!

I am on this quest to buy a decent and not too expensive mp3 player that will work with Yahoo's music unlimited service. I have an older version of Apple ipod music that pretty much stops everytime when I cross the 5 mph speed limit (Can't blame the ipod as the product is a hard drive based on). Also, it is unfortunate that ipod shuffle doesnt work with Yahoo Music at all - otherwise that will be my first and only choice.

Based on my research these are the things that I believe one should look for in deciding on a MP3 player

- Make sure that MP3 player is flash drive based player (no moving parts). This would automatically restrict the size of your song collection to less than 2 GB - but being a player with no moving parts you should get more reliable performance.
- As far as possible try to buy a device that Yahoo kinda recommends or someone mentioned in their website that it works.
- Understand the lingo. Almost most of the devices that are there in the market say they support "Play for Sure" technology. All this means is that they support mp3 files that have been bought in stores like Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster etc. It DOES NOT mean that they work with a subscription service like Yahoo Unlimited.
- Read the CNET reviews and the user reviews. CNET reviews are probably more reliable than anything else out there

My buying experience
09/17/06 - I went and bought a Sansa C140 yesterday (as it was selling for cheap in Costco). Big mistake - this is a piece of junk - clumsy, operations are fairly non-intuitive, proprietary USB cable etc. Going to walk this back to the store.

10/12/06 - After returning the Sansa C140 (that was a while ago) - I went and bought Zen Nano plus 1 GB mp3 player. I bought this one for 2 reasons
a) On Sale at circuit city for 44 bucks.
b) Creative website mentioned that this device supports Yahoo Unlimited ( Talk about truth in advertising - more that on just a minute)

After bringing it home and updating with its latest firmware, I tried to configure it so that Yahoo music would pick it up. No luck. In reading through Creative and other blogs - I realized that this sucker was incompatible with Yahoo Music Unlimited as well. When Creative says that this device is compatible with Yahoo Unlimited - all it means is that whatever songs you BUY (as in in BUY) is movable to the player - but NOT the songs that you have selected and paying Money for the ON THE GO functionality of Yahoo. It seems that the best list to follow is the very SMALL list that Yahoo provides ( it is on their site for compatible devices). My next stop is to go buy a Zen V as I dont want any external hard drive -much prefer flash drive). Will keep this blog updated.