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http://www.mpio.com/product/productview_fg.html

43 hours off a single AA battery.

Reviews seem to back up the 43 hour claim:

http://www.epinions.com/content_172305911428
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MPIO/message/5192

If you think about it, it stands to reason that a similarly featured and sized flash-based player with no moving parts and using the same battery type is going to have better battery life than a MiniDisc player with moving parts would. Writing flash memory doesn't take a lot of power, and reading it takes even less. There's no reason for the remainder - LCD displays and MP3 decoder / audio circuitry - to use any more or less between the two devices.

Sure thing. An MPIO FG100 will give you 43 hours battery life on a single AA battery:

http://www.mpio.com/product/productview_fg.html

That's well over half (35 hours) of your Walkman's battery life, in a 1GB Win/Mac compatible USB 2.0 flash player that also includes an FM radio, as well as the ability to record from voice, radio and line-in. Oh, and it only weighs 40.5 grams, and is only 82 x 31 x 28.5mm in size.

As for upgradability - I've seen quite a few MP3 players upgraded to add compatibility for new file formats, and if you choose a player with a flash card slot you can upgrade the memory over and over as newer (and faster) cards become available.

Shock resistance? I'm talking about dropping the player, and there's no question that a flash-based player will be more shock resistant than a MiniDisc player with moving parts. (And there are quite a few flash-based players that have shock-proof bodies that won't show a mark after repeated drops).

Versatility? Let's see you take a MiniDisc and put it in your digital camera. Oh, wait - you can't. Buy a card-based flash MP3 player, and chances are you can, particularly if it uses SD cards. USB connection? You'll still be waiting to transfer data long after I've thrown 8GB of MP3s onto a Secure Digital card through a Cardbus adapter in my laptop. Cardbus will give you SD write speeds of 9.5MB/second, where the best dedicated USB 2.0 card readers are around 7.5MB/sec, and the transfer rates on built-in USB 2.0 connections in most portable devices are typically half that.

>> OLED technology just isn't good enough for this to be viable yet. Not true. The one inch OLED display on my MPIO-one is excellent, especially with video. (http://www.mpio.com/product/productview_fg200.htm l)

How would the iRiver iFP-799 and iFP-899 compare to the:
- iAudio 5 and U2
- Samsung YP-MT6Z and YP-T6Z
- MPIO FY 400

Using a single device as both a USB key an an MP3 player is convenient.

While not meaning to sound like a commercial, I'm really liking the one I recently got, a 1 GB MPIO FL300. It's tiny, just a bit bigger than a butter patty. It includes (depending on where you get it) a necklace strap, as well as an armband thing, both of which are great for the gym. $199 for the 1 GB model, $129 for the 256 GB model. Anyway, that's my plug...

Actually, the MPIOs look pretty good. The AAA battery is go0d for foriegn travel and I'm too chicken shit to plug something into the wall. And I like the built in USB plug. Wish they had removable memory though. FY400

I've had an MPIO FL100 since I bought it last christmas. MPIO/Digitalway, the manfacturer, does a better job than most electronics manufactures in updating the firmware. For a craction of a price, at least take a look. The iPod is a sexy piece of electronics though.

MPIO HS100 1.5GB HDD Portable Storage

Plug and play! Carry large data wherever you go. HS100 is a moderately priced mobile digital audio and video consumer product from Digitalway. HS100 is a 1.5 GB portable USB Mass Storage installed with 1-inch HDD. It is a combination of huge capacity HDD and small flash memory storage device. It is capable of fast data transmission by using the USB 2.0 Interface.

You iPod lovers should take a look at the new HD-100.

You iPod lovers should take a look at the new HD-100.

How about this one. Not only is it same size, weight, and price, but it supports an FM tuner and FM recording as well, which the Gateway does not.

It also supports the Mac, which I don't expect the Gateway to do, either.

Sorry in advance... another product plug :P.

Something interesting for those who like the RioVolt player (or the AVC Soul) is a little-known company called iRiver, who actually designed the latter two, and only recently started to distribute their products in N.A..

Their ChromeX (iMP 150) is *identical* to the other 2 players mentioned above, and comes with that neat external lcd controller, whereas SonicBlue will ask another $20 for it. Their SlimX (iMP 350), OTOH, simply is awesome! I own one and I must say it is the best MP3/CD player I have tried (I also use the SMC-based MPio DMG when I'm at the gym though, due its smaller (2" x 2") size.