i had been holding out because one of the things i wanted it for was to play audio books from audible.com and it wouldn't do that until just this past week. i had actually e-mailed audible a couple of weeks ago asking when the windows i-pod would support the audible format and was told that it would be a month or two still. but then the other day i read this story by walt mossberg and decided the time was ripe. it's another gadget but it will end up serving a usefull purpose. i can rip all my cd's to it and have my entire collection at my fingertips (and play them over my car or home stereo with an adapter) and i can also listen to books, magazines, etc.. on it when i'm doing whatever i'm doing.