This is old news - and has its own downsides. (Score 1)

This came out about 3 months ago first...and what they don't tell you is the $800 cost, and the fact that you can't put any of your pre-existing MP3s on it. You MUST make new ones with the included software - which is considerably slower than say, AudioGrabber and GoGo combo.

So, your gigabytes of MP3s just became useless with this device - gotta do it all over again.

Check out AudioGalaxy for some reviews and thoughts about these players - this is definitely the future of portable MP3's. Let's not kid ourselves, the Flash RAM option is ridiculous unless we suddenly find a way to make those cards ultra-cheap - and I don't see that happening.

The other way is the CD MP3 player, but that has its own problems - it's no longer skip-free. On the other hand, all those MP3 CDs you already have should work on those.

For now, the cheapest and most effective solution is to get a CD burner and a Discman - you can burn anything you want, blank CDs are less than a $1 a piece (in the US anyway), you can get a Discman for under $50 nowadays as well - and a CD burner has other uses as well, so you don't lose money there.