Any recommendations for a sturdy mp3 player?

An iPod Classic. It’ll hold 160 Gb of music, they are plenty sturdy, and there are lots of accessories to keep them dry and lots of auxiliary speakers to play them on..

If you’ll be using headphones anyway, a bluetooth headset with your phone (or any other device) might be a good call.

I second the iPod Classic. I’ve got a 120GB one, it holds a massive amount of songs and is very durable and shock resistant.

When I think sturdy I think no moving parts is better – I would go for something without a spinning hard drive.

So against popular opinion in the answers above, that means I like every current iPod except the Classic. And the Shuffle has no screen to crack.

The Sansa Clip players also get a lot of great reviews and they’re cheap. They also receive FM , in case that appeals to you (the iPod Nano also has FM).

I’ve dropped my ipod classic lots and it’s never broken. I haven’t dumped it into the toilet, though.

@Rarebear I have! 2 years ago. Luckily the water was clean and my iPod was turned off. I opened the iPod and carefully dried all the parts out and then turned it on again. It’s still working today!

Don’t get a iPod. They don’t last long and a pain in the butt.

My old Sansa is still working after 6–7 years. I work in a foundry, and I cannot count the number of times it had been dropkicked on concrete. I recommend Sansa.

I vote for the ipod shuffle, they are cheap as chips and virtually unbreakable.