Portable player?

[I-S]

Now that solid state capacities are up there, and I no longer need to cross-encode my FLACs to mp3, I am looking again at portable music.

My requirements:

1) Excellent sound quality
2) Must play FLAC
3) Must be solid state
4) Must be expandable (eg micro-SDHC)

So far the players I have my eye on:

Sandisk Sensa Fuze:

Advantages: Price, rep for good audio quality
Disadvantages: Limited storage space (max 8GB internal)

Creative Zen x-fi2:

Advantages: Screen, storage space, rep for good audio quality
Disadvantages: Price, size?, will I really use screen features?

Has anyone any experience of these players? Or can suggest any other alternatives (please note that MS Zune doesn't fulfill my requirements, and I wouldn't buy an iPod even if it did (it doesn't either))? Iriver? Cowon?

 

[muzzer]

I-S
I have a Fuze and its not bad, sq is on a par with my sons Touch, you will need some better phones than the supplied ones.
Also look at the Cowon i7 and D2 , by all accounts they are i-pod killers.

 

[scott_01]

Isaac

I am afraid I can't tell if it plays FLAC but have you seen the latest Sony offering? Despite the worlds worst interface (TM) in the form of 'sonicstage', my old Sony NW HD3 was much better sounding than my ipod. However it sadly drowned in the sea and wasn't any good after that: