Must be damned cheap digital cameras then. Admitedly the ones I trained with cost multiples of thousands of $ each, not to mention a pro slr. But the one that's here seems to be lasting ok. I still think it gets back to battery care. I don't know much about the other portable mp3 players, except a comment from a fellow uni student a few years back that the mini disk they had had a lot of short-comings. I don't know what brand it was.