My first MP3 player was the Creative MuVo. The storage part (actually, really everything but the battery holder) you could disconnect and use as a USB stick, which was also how you loaded music onto it. I (correctly) thought this was very cool.
I eventually did get an iPod, the one that was all capacitive touch buttons and wheel, the last one before the click wheel.
The other thing that was great about the MuVo music players is that they all had tactile controls. I used to listen with them while riding my bicycle, and I could operate mine in any way I needed to with it still in my pocket: repeating a track, skipping a track, changing albums, toggling shuffle, etc.
I eventually did get an iPod, the one that was all capacitive touch buttons and wheel, the last one before the click wheel.