Sansa from Sandisk is an excellent product!! I know you guys can go to the product features page in the website and get all the details but let me summarize it here:
Very good features: you can play music (mp3 and some of the other types) & video, keep photos and listen to FM. Note that, iPod doesn’t give you all in all versions!
Design is good. Easy to traverse!
It is value for money! Definitely cheaper than iPod and some of the other products with same or more features
Longevity: Now I’m using it for more than 2 years and I had no problems. Battery is pretty good and strong!! It goes on for more than 10 hours once charged fully.
The only thing I thing can be improved on the feature side is to read the clips by folders rather than tags (artist, genre, album etc). Both the options should be there. So, in overall, I would recommend you to go for it.