Can’t help you on the radio region issue, though it should work alright if you chose your region properly when you first booted up the new FW. If not, try changing the language, then change it back, and it should give you the option again. Or do a hard reset by hold the power switch for awhile.
As far as recording, I second the desire to record both radio and voice in a compressed format. However, I do understand that compression requires extra system resources above simply converting the sound to digital. Its possible that these players may not be able to utilize the ADC (analog to digital converter) and perform file compression in real-time, due to the lack of RAM. Granted, it would require less “horsepower” to play the files, but if it can’t do the conversion and the compression at the same time, then it simply can’t be done. Just like the database limitations, seems like what’s really limiting these players is RAM. The AS3525 has a very small amount of its own ram, and SanDisk did not add an extra RAM module to save cost and space, so RAM is really scarce. This is why FW updates typically won’t add ALOT of new features, as many of them would require too much RAM to run anyway. Not to mention that many functions will be loaded into RAM anytime the player is on, so the more features you add, the less space you have for other things in the future. I would like to see the ability to record in compressed formats, though, but I certainly understand if it just can’t be done.
