For reference, I currently use 1 of 2 mp3 players, samsung yp-t7 1 gig, and mobiblu cube 1500i 1 gig.
Both are fine players in various situations, however the following are my desires for something new.
My ideal mp3 player
- flash based: 1 gig min, 4 gig preferred, 24 hour battery min, 3+ day preferred, cigarette lighter sized ideal
disk based: 50 gig min, 100+ gig preferred, 12 hour battery min, 24+ battery preferred, no bigger than ipod size
- id3 v2.4 support
lyrics support (tag or external files)
rating support (2 way support with MM) a separate set of thumbs up/down buttons would be ideal (like the pandora streaming player)
last played/play count support (2 way support with MM)
(MM embedded) album art support
genre/mood support
random all
random within folder
random within playlist
easy to view screen indoors/outdoors without backlight
easy/intelligent navigation/menus
user replaceable battery preferred
mp3 support, I use only cbr mp3, other file types while nice, are immaterial to me
I have my own (awesome sony fontopia's) headphones so I don't care about the included ones