Well, there's no backing out now.

[Posted by roberto:]

That's it. There's nothing I can do now, no time for anything else. It took quite some time to get here and during that time I've managed to hold together. I've eyed the competition and finally settled on something practical: a commitment has been made.

That's right, I bought a mp3 player.

An iPod to be exact, the 10GB model. I leave for my honeymoon on Monday and I needed a mp3 player to provide me with enough music for the two week trip. This narrowed the field greatly and, coupled with my size requirements, ruled out CD based players. I also took into consideration the various helpful reviews I found on the web. In the end I decided on an iPod. They come in the 5, 10 and 20GB models and my budget fell right in the middle. Well, sort of. They now make a newer 10GB model which comes with a remote control on the headphone cable, a carrying case and the scroll wheel is now touch sensitive (so it's not really much of a "wheel" now, but whatever). And oh, it's 1.5mm thinner. I, wanting to save $50, puchased the older model. Plus, I didn't realize what I ordered until it arrived.

So far my experience has been good. The player is so damned small and seems very well built. The screen is crisp and easy to read and the back-light is very bright. The firewire port is amazing - VERY quick. (The Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced album transferred in about 15-20 seconds.) The iPod automatically sorts your mp3s based on the information stored in the ID3 tags which means if everything has been encoded correctly you will be able to navigate your mp3s by Album, Artist and Genre. If your mp3s aren't encoded correctly they'll just be listed in the Songs folder making them impossible to find. To fix the ID3 tags in my current mp3s I'm using Tag&Rename which will take a directory of mp3s and search through freedb.com for their correct tag info. Damn spiffy, I will be registering this software.

Navigation is easy and quick and they throw in a Breakout game for kicks. (Maybe they'll release an API so we can write our own games?) The support for the iPod is fantastic with numerous addict sites showing you the latest and greatest things you can do with your player.

All in all I think I made the right choice but the real test is how it fares on my upcoming vacation...