I got my ipod almost a month ago having a little portable mp3 experience in the past. My first mp3 player i bought off ebay even though i had a Rio sport waiting for me come christmas time. The one i bought off ebay was slightly used, and extremely small. It was about the same size as a credit card. However, this was the worst portable device i think ive ever seen in my life. I dont remember the name obviously because it was not worthy of being remembered. :mad: So anyways, this mp3 player held about 6 songs, had no backlight, transfered over a PRINTER SERIAL PORT and on top of that it had an odd problem of turning itself off ALL THE TIME! I had it roughly a week before i sold it on ebay again for maybe $14 if i remember correctly. My second mp3 player of course was the Rio sport. When i got this i also got the expandable memory chip boosting it up to 64MB (which seemed like a lot at the time) This however was a big step up. It had Rio's good brand name behind it as well as a backlight, more storage, and it was very small. I used it all through my second semester at college until IT TOO started turning itself off as i walked to school. Plus, i am an mp3 fanatic with around 3500 mp3's (via 56k mind you) and needed quite a bit more storage than 1.5 cd's worth. The combination of the rio not having a hold switch, enough storage, and turning itself off compelled me to look elsewhere. I was considering getting the car jukebox which mounts in the trunk of your car like a cd changer because i was in need of all 3500 songs at my fingertips. no more skipping or driving with my knees to change cd's yay! :cool: I had always wanted the ipod ever since it came out a long time ago. Having the dyeing need for a new mp3 player as well as mass mp3 storage in my car with the added portable HD feature of the ipod was what finalized my best buy purchase of the 10gb 3rd gen ipod. At the time, i didn't even know that this was the newest ipod available, i thought they all looked bad ### in the first place so who cares?? Now that I have my ipod its somewhat of a mixed bag. Sure it looks great, and is small, holds an ### load of mp3's and what not...but for $300 there was still something missing (literally). By this I mean after shelling out $300 for an mp3 player, one can only feel a little left out by not receiving the remote, case, or dock connector. The ironic (and sad part) about it is that my first ipod purchase that day at best buy was an open box special for a little cheaper. Upon inspection by my friend on the way home in the car, we realized there was no software for the ipod! :eek: Being somewhat deprived in ipod knowledge at the time, i felt this was a problem. The only bad part is that THIS IPOD came with the dock connector, case, and the remote. Had i looked on the back of the ipod, im sure i would have found perhaps a 15GB or 30GB printed on the back. In other words...i got a 15 or 20gb ipod for about $100 cheaper...but returned it just cause i didn't have musicmatch. Had i know what music match would have been like...i would have paid NOT to have it!