I have a 1.5 GB Rio Nitrus and 128 MB RCA Lyra. In some ways, I like the RCA better. I obviously can't keep a lot of music on it. I just drop a playlist on it and go. With my Nitrus, I tend to listen to artists or, occasionally, genres. I have more music with me, but I can generally predict what I'm going to listen to. I can see how having thousands of songs on a large capacity player appeals to people, but I'm not sure I'd always like it. I've been thinking about getting the 500 MB Shuffle. I wouldn't want 1 GB of storage without a LCD screen (and the ability to choose artists, albums, and genres), but I could handle 500 MB without one. I never use the LCD screen on my Lyra, and I would use the Shuffle pretty much in the same way. It just fits the way I listen to music on an MP3 player. That's why we have choices. I can't help but think that Apple will come out with a flash player that has a LCD screen. It's the next step. I think it's a pretty smart move not to release everything at once. It seems to be keeping people interested. I'm guessing that is what they will release next year. Maybe I'll wait and see. I just wish we could get one DRM scheme that all the online music stores use. I hate being locked into anything, and that's what both Apple and Microsoft are trying to do. I like iTunes at the moment (although I wish they'd bump up the bitrate on their music), but it would be nice to be able to change players or stores without having to jump to an incompatible technology. In some ways, that kind of makes me want to stick with CDs for the time being.
