The Cowon iAudio players seem to be pretty well liked in general - if he's not bothered about photos then he can save himself some money by going for the mono screen version of the X5, the M5.

Never used one myself, but they support FLAC and seem to be fairly reliable & have nice metal cases. The UI looks fairly typical of far eastern players, though I've heard the Cowon products aren't quite as impenetrable as the iRiver stuff.

www.cowon.com redirects you to the right place...

Hugo