Most solid state mp3 players have low battery life. In fact, almost all mp3 players have low battery life. That's why I went with minidisc instead. with the mdlp feature, which let u record over 5 hrs on 1 md (the quality is on par with wma) and net md (comes out in march, u can pre order now) which lets u transfer songs at 32x realtime (that's a norm for mp3 players, but md ppl had to deal with real time transfers until now). The feature that md have that totally kicks mp3 players all over the place is battery life. I have yet to see a minidisc player that can't play for a minimum of 40 hrs on one new battery (usually an AA or a special lith ion from sony) compare to 4 hrs on my old d-link (not the best brand, i know) mp3 player using 2 AAA. Some md players claim to have 155 hrs of play time (which would require 38 3/4 x 2 batteries on my mp3 player). Just imagine the amt of money u have to spend. I don't care what kinda of deal u can get from costco, that is just not worth it imo.