I assume you are looking for a strictly music player (and video capable but not really important)....
If thats the case... the cowon is not a bad choice... but remember it does not have a memory expansion... and I have learned that it is really usefull (to me) to have a way to expand your player capacity... otherwise it becomes olmost obsolete.... I have 16+ GB of music... on my 30 GB archos av500, 7 GB of photos, some videos, and backup files...... I bought a 4gb pen drive to be my memory expansion since the player can be USB host... it work really fine...

In the other hand the creative is a great choice too.. i recommended to a friend... and is the smallest-video-satisfying-screen in my opinion.... should be great for audio quality as well... and the SD expansion slot is a great plus... remember...