I was convinced that the iRiver iFP 795 was the player for me. Then I literally stumbled across a post on a web forum somewherer that said if you think you like the iFP 795, you really want a Samsung YP-MT6X. I decided to investigate that claim, and from where I sit it seems to be true. The YP meets all my criteria: OGG, long battery life, USB mass storage. It does this better than the iFP, too. The iFP supports OGG, but apparently there's some minor glitches with it including heavier battery consumption and clicks between songs. The Samsung also puts in a little plug for OGG in their manual, rather than just a footnote on some technical specs page. Samsung claims 42 hours, vs. iRiver's claim of 40 or so, and the reviewers say they got close to 40, whereas the iRiver reviewers say they were really only getting 20 or 30. The Samsung is USB mass storage out of the box, but the iRiver requires a firmware upgrade.

Apparently earlier firmware of the Samsung player had some issues with navigation, but those have been cleared up. The Samsung looks better, in my opinion. It's classier and not a weird shape with weird protrusions. The Samsung manual reads slightly better, too. So the Samsung looks just a bit better in almost every way, and is $10 cheaper in most marketplaces.

The odd bits where the iRiver has an edge: the YP-MT6X records voice to WAV, which means it's pretty worthless for long recordings. It records FM and line-in to mp3 though... maybe a future firmware will let you choose mp3 for voice recording. The iFP also has a limited FM recording timer. It's only one timer, so it wouldn't be incredibly useful (although I could make sure never to miss cartalk again), but it is something.