Here's my dilema, I've been researching DAP's for about 6 months now. Here's what I need it for; a 35 minute train commute, 1.5 hours at the gym, and now I can no longer stream audio at work so I need to hold about 8 or so hours of podcasts (talk radio and sports). I'm not opposed to getting an iPod, as iTunes 4.9 has auto-sync for podcasts which seems pretty sweet, but I understand that iPod music quality is pretty bad. I thought for a long time about an iRiver H320, but not sure I want to schlep that around at the gym and I don't think I need a big 20g hard drive.
What about the Cowan iAudio U2 or the Sony NW-E507 1g versions? Will that be enough memory for all this, or should I move up to a 4,5,6,20G player?
I would prefer to just drag and drop or just sync with WMP, not have any proprietary software to deal with.
I'm open to anything - Creative, Cowan, iRiver, Sony, others - what are your suggetions? Willing to spend up to $300.

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