I personally like Flash based storage over Hard Drive-based players when it comes to MP3 players just because they are small, sexy, and light. I guess they could really strain your wallet if you had a like, roomfull of CDs needing to be stored on it though... Now, to the "shuffle" - that piece of junk is barely worth paying for, Apple should be ashamed for thinking that people would give up the luxury of a screen (oooh , so advanced ~~~) just to "enjoy" the mystery of "which song comes next???". Wow - a leap of stupidity if you ask me... Not only that, but you could easily get a Samsung Yepp flash 512 mb for MUCH less, and it is considerably better (it even has a SCREEN! - ooo, and manual controls! ).