Right, you can only use iTunes to transfer music to an iPod, but it's more than likely that most of the music files will be MP3 file format (some might be AAC, which Apple have been pusing a lot, specially for the iPod Nano's)

If you get a "normal" MP3 player (ie, not an iPod) these are usually designed to plug into a PC and show up in MY COMPUTER as a removeable storage drive, so you can drag n drop MP3 (and often WMA) files from your music folder on the PC, and transfer via USB cable. I don't know of any other than Sony's ones and the iPod that use a specific programme to transfer the music (Sony uses a programme called Sonic Stage, or OpenMG, to transfer the music, so while it's tranferring it converts to ATRAC3, same file type as used on Minidiscs). For this reason alone I would steer clear of Sony. Personally I would go for a USB "Flash" based mp3 player, as these don't have any moving parts so are less likely to corrupt or crash... Downside is that the biggest you can get is usually 1gb (some are 2gb)

If you want to get some of your mates music off his Mac onto an MP3 player that isn't an iPod, I suggest just get him to burn what you want onto a CD-R disc as data files (they will show as MP3 or AAC depending on what the file type is) Stick the CD into your PC, and copy the files to a location on your hard drive. If there are some AAC files you can easily convert them back to MP3 using a converter programme, available for free, legal download here;

http://www.nch.com.au/switch/plus.html

As far as MP3 players go, I would be looking at something like these;

1gb MP3 listings

Or these, if you want 2gb storage

2GB MP3 listings

For reference, I just slotted a 1gb MMC card into my phone (which acts as an MP3 player with same controls as a Nano) and I have 19 full albums (ripped at 128k mp3) and still have 50mb or so free space on it



**(Listings from ebay are to illustrate what type of media device and it's specs, of course these are available from high street stores, just remember they will probably cost a fair bit more from the highstreet )**