>Try to find another mp3 player with massive storage
>Any Android device.
Last time I looked for such a thing, my choices seemed to be:
A. Small device with fairly small storage. This is getting better lately, with phone builtin storage growing, but I still haven't seen anything as small as an iPod Classic offering anything like 160 GB. However, the phones that have anywhere near enough storage are also rather large.
B. 5-9 inch tablet. Need I say more? If I wanted to browse the web and watch movies on it this would be awesome, but I want a pocket sized device to listen to music on. I don't care if it has a high resolution touchscreen; if it doesn't fit comfortably in a pocket, it's useless to me.
>an excellent user interface
This is something you're not going to get on an iPod Classic either. I thought the UI was pretty nice until I installed Rockbox on a Sansa Clip+. It has a truly tiny 2-level monochrome OLED display and a generic selection of buttons and a CPU that can barely emulate classic GameBoy at full speed. But with Rockbox it has so many more functions than my iPod Classic, which can't run any unofficial firmware due to code signing. I can edit playlists with much greater ease. I can enqueue songs without disrupting the current playlist. I can save custom playlists with names other than "On The Go Playlist 5". I can search and navigate my music library much more effectively. And the big one: I can connect it to any Windows, Linux or Mac and access my music library like on any disk.
>good to excellent build quality
Sure, the Clip+ has a plastic shell, not Apple's anodized aluminum. It does seem to be pretty sturdy though, apart from the clip -- it broke off after a couple years, I dremeled off the remains of it, drilled a couple little holes and now have it on a nylon cord I wear around my neck. It's gone in water a few times as well. I blew the water out of it as best I could and let it sit for a half hour, and it doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear.
Downside of my trusty little Clip+ is that it's 4 GB plus whatever MicroSD I can stick in it. When I can get a 128-256 GB MicroSD, I'll truly have a replacement for the iPod Classic.