When I first realised I'd be able to afford a DAP I looked at the Creative Nomad 3 because I saw it on sale for £150 and a lot of the reviews I read were positive, but as with all new gadgets I get I buy I look at the spectrum of availabilities.
Settled on my iHP-140 and am pleased with it, too many other DAPs all look alike, plastic silver/white bricks/soap bars, at an asthetic level they look more like plastic boxes than metal devices.
I saw a Creative Zen 60gb in a shop alongside an iHP-120 and an iPod, the thing was large in comparison and looked more like a metal pencil tin you'd take to school than a DAP.
Have to say one of the biggest reasons I bought my iHP-140 was the external USB drive feature, no faffing about with having to install stupid software just to put files on the device, the amount of extras it has built-in, recording, optical, radio, full function remote control, multiple audio formats etc. were the icing on the cake.
As for where iRiver is heading I think they started losing the plot when they made a modified version of the H3xx series that doesn't have the USBOTG feature - a player with a colour screen and massive amounts of storage space for pictures and you can't copy the pictures onto it from a digicam? how screwed up is that?
The whole portable video player area is in it's infantcy, there's even a unit that has 128mb ram and can record off it's built-in tv tuner... 128mb for chrissake! what the hell use is that? the market is getting to be flooded with these things and unless iRiver's offerings are something exceptional they're going to crash and burn along with countless others.
Ehh what do I know, I'm just an end user
Oh and the amount of reviews of that new Creative player by users who don't own it and are only going by specs highlight just how much you should take CNet reviews with several pinches of salt if they can't properly police the users reviews and polling system.