I love my express, and with the 2gb sandisk card it makes a great MP3 player that I can store things on as I take it place to place. It’s a data vault that I always have on me.
That said, I wish they would fix annoyances like the memory card incompatibilities, the random song order (which does kill it as a music listening device… who wants to hear the same songs over and over on a commute? Why not just use a cd player), and the fact that it doesn’t auto-resume after a pause then shut down. It’s like, if you’re a music listener, or a podcast guy, there is something to tick you off. The firmware updates need to be handled consistantly too. I had to get a version downloaded from the net, because I couldn’t get the firmware update to work on any computer, in any mode. I literally hate that pausing has become a game of chicken. Will I be able to resume before it powers off in ten minutes, or will I forget and have to fast forward for five minutes to get back to where I was? Or should I just hold down power for five seconds, which is annoying, so I know it will work?
When they get some fixes for these, the sooner the better, I will defend it to the death as the best sub $100 player, and recommend it to everyone. As is, I have a hard time recommending it to anyone but a hard core techie like me that will put up with it’s quirks.
