Here's a reply I made to someone on another forum who was having problems with his Zen and was considering a flash player:
I bought both the iRivier iFP-799 and the Zen Micro to compare and decide. There's a 30 day no-questions-asked return policy at futureshop, so it suited me well.
Anyway, the Zen Micro is much sexier, but the iFP is rugged and more "manly". I found the controls on the Zen to be inferior to the iPod, I mean they're good, but it's like good vs great. Anyway, while transfering music to the Micro, it crashed. I had to remove the battery. Some of the songs made it on, so I tried to listen to them and it crashed again. I pretty much made up my mind right there and then. It's a great player in terms of design and sound quality. The thing feels so nice in your hand, much better than the iPod Mini. But I won't tolerate any more crashes.
I don't think you'll be disappointed with the iRiver flash player (either the 7x or 8x series). The sound quality is very good, and the volume was pretty much the same as the Zen Micro. The FM reception is great in my area, it should be in yours too. The controls are reputed to be awkward and difficult, but they're not really. People tell you to read the manual, but you don't need to. Just play around knowing that most of the buttons have an alternate function depending on when and how you press them. For example, the record button records (duh), but if you hold it, it brings you to the mode select screen where you can choose to either play mp3s, listen to FM, record your voice or choose line-in recording. The case that comes included is good enough, make sure to close the buttons and THEN insert the player, it's too tough to do it the other way around.
There is a bug in the iRiver player if you intend to play variable bit-rate Lame encoded MP3s. Just make sure to disable the ID3v2 tags, otherwise the player will play a bit, restart and move on to another song. And make sure to get the 1.25 firmware if you intend to use the software, or the 1.28 if you want UMS. It adds features and fixes bugs. Like you couldn't select an end-time to your timed radio recordings, which was a bit odd, but the firmware adds that feature. There was an issue regarding some barely audible white noise in the background, but that's been fixed in the newer models of those players. Mine is completely silent, even with volume at 0.
EDIT: You weren't "unlucky", the Zen Micro just suffers from crashes from time to time. Cnet even mentions that in their Micro review.
