[frank @ Jan 10th 2006 10:59PM]

I expect nothing short of harsh criticism from Engadget editors for such a perfect product. I mean clearly, what good is a gadget that isn't encumbered by a crappy VGA camera and the ability to play videos on a 1.2 inch screen, coupled with a proprietary battery that might get you a couple hours between charges?



Whether it's properly marketed as such is subject to debate but this is a DAP made for true music fanatics. I have more music than will currently fit onto a portable player so getting my entire collection onto one device is out of the question. That being the case, I know I'll be changing up the selections pretty often so 2 or 3 gigs at a time is just fine.



Since nearly all of my digital music was either ripped from my own CD collection or downloaded from a DRM-free P2P like Soulseek, MP3 and WMA is all I need. If a proprietary music file ever found it's way onto one of my boxes, my Naked Raygun MP3's would kick the shit out of it.



Finally, a small LCD capable of showing me what's playing is, again, pretty much all I need. More importantly, an oversized battery-sucking color screen is exactly what I *don't* need to keep the tunes rolling for days at a time. You can Ebay yourself a truckload of AA and AAA batteries for a few bucks, effectively giving you months of play time without ever having to plug it in.



And it's not like Panasonic just pulled this out of their ass; they've been making similar, extremely portable DAP's for a while now:

http://www.dynamism.com/d-snap/

http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/29/panasonics-256mb-svmp710vw-dap/



... and somebody bought 'em.



=frank=