e. Jim has been discussing buying a new MP3/video player and I have been thinking about this, too. It is a tough choice and I will probably wait until prices come down.

The choices are:

1) PDA – like a Dell Axim or a Palm.

2) iPod – the new ones do video.

3) iTunes – iPhone without the phone. It does everything, including wifi for Internet browsing.

4) Chinese MP5 player – very cheap and going to get cheaper.

I tried to get my Dell Axim x50v to be useful for anything, but it is a permanent boat anchor. For video  you will need at least 4 gigs of storage. You need at least a gig to store a long book on MP3. The AXIM has a megabytes and won’t even play most videos.

The iPods can be had for about $100 in the lower memory configurations if you shop the refurbs at Apple.com’s store. This is a the solution that works best, but is still pricey.

iTunes is a good choice, but I think they are going to be a round of price cuts yet on Apple products, so hold off until January.

The Chinese MP5 players look good, but there are scam artists. You have to be careful that you get all the memory that you pay for. They cost about $75 shipped from China with a touch screen. The MP5 is a misnomer. There are only MP3 or Mpeg-4 players. The MP5 means that it plays a much larger variety of formats. There aren’t really MP5 files.

Here is the eBay Link to a 4 GB 3" touch screen MP5 player. It is from a Hong Kong shipper and I can’t guarantee that you’ll actually get it, but it does look tempting.