technics don't have the best quality sound. as renze said a belt drive (to reduce vibration transfered to the music) would be better for music listening only... and they'd likely last as long or longer...
however! there are some new turntables that are not using needles and instead using lasers to read the pit of the track. benefits would be: no adding losses, ie: scratching the part of the pit that the needle traditionally sits in, and higher resolution. dunno about price though
anyhow, get a technics if you think you will like doing some mixing eventually, but if you only have interest/time etc. in listening take a read of this:
http://stereos.about.com/od/stereoto...argain_tts.htm
it's a pretty good idea of some good turntables. the pro-ject (#4) and the rega(#1) are both brands that i heard and seen (and they are considered quite good audio-quality wise). and they look quite fine too (unliek a technics).
anyhow, i know my amp doesn't have a phono input so keep that in mind too, some of these might come with their own pre-amp for phono level sound