Let's ADDRESS your cons, my friend!

[quote="Roody_Yogurt"]
- has to be turned on to charge (and doesn't seem to get the full promised six hours)
[/quote]

That's OK, I drive without pants. (And neither do I, sad face!)

[quote]
- the instruction pamphlet makes a mention about making playlists but I'm not sure if it's really possible. putting a playlist file on there definitely does nothing
[/quote]

Truth be told, I am amazed they included instructions!


[quote] - there is no shuffle[/quote]

Arrrrrgh!


[quote] - the max sd card size is 2 GB (although given what I've already mentioned, I think 2 GB is plenty big for the task at hand)[/quote]

Yeah, on one hand, that's pretty low, on the other hand, I always listen to the same six songs for a given period of time, so that is OK.


[quote] - while I've used it in tape decks that work exactly as described (pushing fast forward goes to the next song, etc.), in the car I drive, though, I have to eject and re-insert the tape to get it to play after skipping ahead. it depends on how your tape deck is set up.[/quote]

Arrrrrrgh! This is pretty much the clincher. I may hold off. Without the cassette deck (and car) attached to the thing, I have no way to use the device, except for my 4-track. By holding off, I realize I am only delaying finding out, but that's OK.... for now!

This has been... [size=150][b]ICJ SORT OF MAKES A PURCHASE IN THE FUTURE, MAYBE[/b][/size]

In my mind the tape spinning powered it.

I bought this from thinkgeek.com.

CONS:
- has to be turned on to charge (and doesn't seem to get the full promised six hours)
- the instruction pamphlet makes a mention about making playlists but I'm not sure if it's really possible. putting a playlist file on there definitely does nothing
- there is no shuffle
- the max sd card size is 2 GB (although given what I've already mentioned, I think 2 GB is plenty big for the task at hand)
- while I've used it in tape decks that work exactly as described (pushing fast forward goes to the next song, etc.), in the car I drive, though, I have to eject and re-insert the tape to get it to play after skipping ahead. it depends on how your tape deck is set up.

PROS:
- sounds good. better than a normal tape-to-headphone-jack adapter or the low end radio channel adapter thing I was using before (just be sure to have the volume up on the mp3 player so you don't have to crank your car volume too much)
- works well with headphones as a regular mp3 player
- has several equalizer settings (although many of them sound horrible and you'd never use them)

All in all, it definitely could be better, but I think it's worth the $40 if it meets your needs despite the failings, like it does for me.

Honestly that's a fantastic idea, not only does it reek of indie cred, but removable media!. I love my PSP and it's SD cards. I've got an 8GB card and now I can catch up on stuff like FF8 during my commute.

http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/cassette-mp3-player-stand-alone-or-car-cassette-player/

I must own this. I have a cassette deck on my Subaru. I do own an MP3 player. This will solve all of this. All of this.

I'd need to get some flash memory, but that is fine, that is cheap these days, too.