Hi Cx2.

If you want a cheeper but very cool mp3 player, I'll highly recommend you to take a look on the Sandisk mp3 players. They are awesome. They are small, and most of them are pretty easy to navigate. You can put Rockbox on some of the models. I don't know what models. You can get a player which both have internal flash memory and a slot for sd cards. The Sandisk players does also have many cool features like advanced equalizer and radio.

On the stream and coolness:
It really aggravates me when a product designed with the blind in mind goes for the telephone-style keypad layout. I understand that many blind people often have other disabilities related to motor functions etc etc, but come on... some creativity wouldn't hurt. The phone pad tells me that Humanware doesn't think we are capable of handling a new streamlined interface. Plus I personally remember functions better when they are tied to a specific button. I'd rather think of a function than a number, and the phone pad immediately brings up dialing. VI products in general have crabby non-intuitive layouts, which is why I support mainstream accessibility. I'll likely get a stream once I renew my RFB&D subscription (or if the windows mobiel version of the code factory daisy reader never materializes) but I will be no less disgruntled.

Yeah, but regarding the telephone keypads, I think it's a compatibility issue. Lets say your in my situation:

You've got a Wave, or a Classic+, or ClassicX or some Victor product. And you're looking into the Stream. In all Victor series, 2 and 8 act as nav selection keys and 4 and 6 act as jumpers, in a sense. Now lets say the Stream had a button dedicated to a function, i.e. level 1, level2, go to page.

AAwwww, what happened to 2 and 8...
Gone!

That's why I think they've got telephone keypads, same with BookPort, I have a BookPort and like it, but I can't imagine it without a telephone keypad. What, a dedicated read button? Is it just me, or would that make something bulky?

Another feature that, I hope, they add in the Stream:

Well, since it does have a telephone keypad, and since phones have keypads, I think they should add text notes. For those who own or know about the braille input on BookPort it's the same idea, except that they use for example, 2 for a b and c, instead of braille keys, since you cannot do that with the stream. Crazy idea, but that would be kind of cool.

It's a surton line of recorders that olympus makes. There is the ds30, ds40, and ds50. The main thing that folks seem to like about it is the voice guided menus and maybe the stario recordings. If you want me to, I can post a link leading to more info. Just gotta google it again. I have the DS30 and I can tell you that it is very user friendly. I'm hoping that the access is the same on the new nano. Be just my luck that I will have to have someone set the clock on it. On the DS30, I can just plug it in to the PC and let the PC set the time and date. Let's see, how much money do I have to throw away? Ah, not much at this sec. Guess that new nano or that daisy player will have to weight just a little longer.

Have to agree there. I use mine to record my colladge classes. quite useful.

I like DAISY books because on my Wave i just push go to page then, for example, 304, or, "find the section labeled, bla bla bla", which is of course available via the headings 1-6.

EDIT: Speaking of headings, DAISY seems to resemble HTML, for example, the <h1> tag, etc. I wonder if there are HTML documents on a CD or XML documents or something because a lot of converters seem to be able to take HTML and make a DAISY doc out of it which is why I'm wondering about that.

Yeah, but the RNIB here in the UK did some numbers and they found only a small percentage, can't remember the exact number, actually appear in "alternative formats". This is both audio books as well as large print, braille, etc.

Also a CD audio book is

LOL. I don't go book shopping alot, but most of what I wanted could be found somewhere some how. As for the doom ones, I haven't read it. I not saying that it would be easy either... I'll look when I get the chance. As for the page number of the daisy books, that is handy. As for the ACB, I'll go look. Thinking about download the ITell one too. Gotta go point the PC that I call a siber-space-ship to the needed sites.

What's it about? Heard that name passed around the forms some and I heard some people say something about it. Guess I'm not a proper geek then. lol.

LOL. I was born in the 80s And Gore in office was like a dream, all most. In short, I could care less at the time, but that does sound like my kind of book. Now I'm in my twentys. I will have a good look at the new nano this evening and tell yall what I think ofApple's good looks, along with pricing. That's if yall want the info. I also will have a new book to send over to it to test out ITunes.

Sorry miss type. I was affering to the term they used in lord of the rings. That a big oops. LOL.

I have a 16 gig nano and I love it.

When I heard about the Nanos I just had to have it. LOL

I was using my PM Omni to play all my music, but I got tired of how it would randomly stop playing music for no apparent reason, and my WiFi stopped working. Plus it's not the smallest thing for playing mp3's. So I mostly just use my new laptop for everything minus music that I used the PM for.

I have never seen a Victor Stream, so I don'tknow how that would compare. True that it might be a good idea for people that want a single device. I'veheard though that the quality for music isn't very good. That kind of makes sene since it is designed as a book player.

I also love recrding college stuff with my DS-40. It is great for that, but it is terrible as an mp3 player. It obviously doesn't speak the names of your music, but that's probably not a big deal. There's also no shuffle mode, and to me the sound quality for music is horrible. It's pretty good for recordings, but even then if I play a recording back on thePM, it just sounds a bit clearer.

Yes, the nano does use iTunes to generate voice clips of your files, similar to Rockbox. But the way the Nano does it blows Rockbox out of the water, or at least since the last time I used rockbox. It is very responsive even if you skip through a bunch of items real fast.

I dont' think it's for everyone though since the click wheel is super sensitive. Sometimes I find myself scrolling too far in a menu, or worse yet turning the volume up really high. The speech volume is directly tied to how loud the song is, so if you're listening to a song at a low volume, be ready to pay extra attention so you know where you are at.