Don't know if they are sold in the US, but I was recently tempted by the Archos Gmini XS200 20gig unit. Smaller than an ipod, just not so pretty.

iRiver has great players in all sizes.

These play WMA. Some also let you record WAV files with good quality.

I, too, am a big fan of all the iRiver products.

John

I vote for iriver. I purchased the h120 (20gb) and it's basically an external hard drive. Just drag and drop. Plays wma and also records in wav. Iriver also has a 4 or 5 gb model.

iRiver products sound great too. They have good power out to the headphones and low noise.
They play ASF, MP3, WAV, WMA, & Ogg Vorbis. long battery life.

They also record wav files for their hard disk players. They are not as easy to navigate as an Ipod, but they are nice.

http://reviews.cnet.com/iRiver_H140_40GB/4505-6490_7-30815409.html

I've got the iRiver H120 as well - it's great!

Last summer I got my wife an itty-bitty Creative Muvo with just 128MB of memory. Even with that modest number, however, she can get 4 CDs on it for her workouts if she uses a WMA bitrate of 64Kb/sec, which sounds pretty decent to my middle-aged ears. The thing also has an FM tuner.

Next time I'd go for the 512MB ($120) or 1GB ($200) players, which would mean 16 or 32 CDs of storage. The lack of huge storage is nothing to me, since my PC is the place where I store all my music; since the Muvo plugs in as a generic USB flash storage device and allows for drag-and-drop, updating the inventory is a trivial task.

And, I like the tiny size and the notion that dropping the thing isn't going to trash a hard drive.

Yeah, I like the Muvo, I have a Lyra as well, but at 256, it doesn't store as much as I'd like it to. I'm not home often enough to be able to update, and hearing the same songs over and over gets old on an airplane. Which is why I wanted more. I've kept the Zen for a little while, my ONLY complaint is the installation of the software. I want something that is just like my Lyra where I can rip from the CD straight to the Lyra in WMA in either 64 or 96K modes. The Zen is the perfect size for me, just as the iPod mini is. But WMA is critical to me. I may keep it now that I've got 11 CDs on it so far. Sounds great too, and I like playlist ability.

You might want to look into the RIO Carbon.

Smaller than iPod Mini
5GB of memory stores up to 1250 songs**
Built-in mic for voice record
Drag & drop data and music files
Rechargeable battery - up to 20 hours
USB 2.0 for faster downloads
Charge from USB or Power Adapter
Plays MP3, WMA & Audible®

RIO Carbon

-Dan

In my opinion, the DAP with the best all-around features is the Archos GMini 400 (link).

Capacity: 20Gb
Size: 4.2" x 2.4" x 0.7"
Playback (Audio & Video): MP3, WMA, Divx, etc.

It also has a compact flash slot which means you can backup photos from a digital camera for example on the drive (using the optional 4-in-1 adapter, you can use any major flash memory format).

The only major drawbacks are the same as most other HD based DAPs: (relatively) short battery life (~10 hours), and no removable battery.

As I'm travelling so much recently, long battery time as well as the ability to replace a dead battery with a fresh one is increasingly important. That's why I mostly use my iRiver flash player (256mb), since it has a 30-hour playtime on a single AA battery. But capacity is truly a limiting factor since I've been away from my proper computer for about 4 months now. I've only just got access to a computer that has allowed me to put new songs onto the player. But after 4 months with the same 80 or so songs, I definitely feel your pain Spot :)

The iRiver H10 (link) is their answer to the iPod Mini, but it's recognized as a removable drive and has a removable battery, both very important feautures for me. However, they are in short supply at the moment, pretty much unavailable in most areas.

The Rio Carbon (link) could be another good choice as it requires no additional software, just connect it to a USB port and it's recognized as a removable drive. It's 5gig capacity seems to meet your requirements, and the ~20 hour battery life, while not removable is quite respectable in the world of HD DAPs.

Oh, and by the way, since you're on the topic of personal listening, I would strongly recommend some "In-the-ear" transducers. I have a pair of the relatively cheap Shure e2c devices (can't really call them "headphones") and I love them. They retail for about $100, but you can find them on the internet for about $65. Other models from Shure and Etymotic range upwards to about $500.

You'll hate them at first. It takes some experimenting to get them to fit inside your ear canal. Once you get to that "Ah-ha!" moment, however, life will be grand. I use the little compressible foam thingys on them, and after the foam re-expands in about 1 minute, all the background noise just disappears. The effect is much greater than with noise-cancelling headphones, which I also use from time to time. On airplanes, put me next to that screaming kid--I don't care, since I can't hear him. Just beautiful, flat reproduction of music.

The only problem with them is that they are not the kind of thing you pop in and out for conversation, like you would with headphones. Still, for flying, they are wonderful.

Love mine, long battery - 20+ hours on my HP120.

Nice recording features too.

The wired remote is nice too with the LCD display.

http://headphone.com/layout.php?topicID=13&subTopicID=64

Well the Etymotic has a both a high-cost or low-cost model.

I just checked the prices at the above link and you can get the ER-6 for $99 and the the ER-4 for $219 which is a drop of $110 for ER-4.
I wonder if they have a new model coming out or if Shure has been cutting into their markets.

Hey Spot,
You don't mean one of these, do you?

John