gotta admit, those Sony sticks look pretty cool.

The look doesn't do it for me, but I suppose some will like them. To me, they look like a cigarette lighter or perfume bottle.

But is there much of a market for music devices priced above the iPod? Only time will tell.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy any music for your phone. If you change service providers or get a new phone, you'll have to rebuild your music collection from scratch.

Eventually, we'll all have WiFi (or its successor) pocket PCs that will serve as phones, file stores, music players, among other things.

Yeah those things are Fugly! and I guess saying a "small" LCD screen is right, about 1/4" square? So the 512 goes for 33% more than the entry shuffle and the 1Gb 20% more than the bigger one? Battery life is good but not that good and of course as Rob Glaser correctly points out, it won't be slick to get stuff out of iTunes on to it…

... as long as they can keep it simple. I don't think the average consumer wants a device that's as complex as a PDA. This is why the iPod might continue to hold its own.

At first I was nervous about the new Sony unit, then I thought, it's not the first flash player with a display...

"All seven flash-based Network Walkman players use AAA-type batteries."...disposable batteries, not rechargeables...not the same thing. You'll be feeding it every few days with a new battery.

Note that Sony is back to their old ways -- their new flash players are ATRAC3-only.

They support MP3, too. The OLED screens sound kind of cool.

I don't think mobile phones vs. PCs will win out with music. There's more to do with music than just listen while in transit.

What about music to use with iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD creations? What about listening at home with home stereo systems, etc.

The iPod isn't the be all, end all. But certainly neither is a cell phone.

Yeah, brilliant idea. Considering how often cell phones are handled (read "dropped") and how often iPod hard drives fail already. All we need is to combine the two and people can be screaming about losing their tunes, calendars and phonebooks after dropping the phone.