content: Once again, Sony has designed a great product with incredible functionality only to severely cripple it with over the top digital rights management. I bought this unit to transfer legally purchased mp3 files (that do play on my iPod) only to find out that they "cannot play". Sony tech support indicates that the hardware will not allow mp3's to play if the drm cannot be ascertained - I sent them one of the files and they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work either. It does do some things exceptionally well, such as play music, has fairly simple controls, great battery life and takes disposable batteries as well as a rudimentary but functional display that lights up to make it easier to see at night. It also holds a lot of songs as Sony indicates in their literature. Unfortunately, it does require that you use the Sony supplied software to transfer songs into it - and the Sonic Stage software is nowhere as user friendly as the Apple iTunes software.