irock! 500 Series MP3 Players

With Napster gone, it's a little more difficult to steal music, but MP3 players are still pretty handy gadgets even if you have to pay for your tunes. Motorola is now in the digital music device business with its First International Digital offshoot putting out pretty reasonably priced players. Without having one in hand, I can't really tell you how well they compete with higher priced offerings, but at under $100, they're pretty attractive for those of us who want high tech toys on the cheap. The irock! 510 and irock! 520 feature expandable memory capacity with external Smart Media Card (SMC) slots and measure 2.5" x 2.8" x .7". The irock! 510 has 32MB of built-in memory and an SMC slot for an additional 64MB of expandable memory. The irock! 520 has 64MB of onboard memory and a SMC slot for an additional 64 MB. Players include software, earbud earphones, a USB cable, and a hand strap. The irock! 500 series players will be available within the next two weeks at North American retail outlets including CompUSA and RadioShack for around $79.99 (510) and $99.99 (520). FID says that you can download over a thousand titles for free at its web site if you buy one, and everyone who registers on the site gets a free personal online "storage locker" to store up to 125MB of music.