one thing to think, does BMW have a Zen setup in there cars or is it an iPod?

yes its an iPod, so does mercedes now, as well as other car companies. And the VW is going to get a Mac mini inside of it.

lol @ caring that is supports wma, and if people were loading full applications onto their ipods and using it like another discdrive, what's all this about them not supporting certain file formats? i been thinking about getting an ipod photo :)

I don't need one now that I have an ATRAC3Plus CD player. Its a codec by sony that plays songd at MP3 quality and reduces them to kilobytes. no joke. Look it up. I have 35 full albums on one CD. :)

All of my songs are kilobytes, too. Just somewhere around 5,000 KB.

Saying "MP3" quality is meaningless because you can compress an MP3 from 32 kbps to 320 kbps (my preferred level). When you listen on very high quality headphones or a home theater system, you can easily hear the imperfections in 128 kbps MP3s.

I want to get an iPod mini for my listening pleasures within the coming weeks.

Back up a parsec or two here, your saying that the batteries are manually rechargeable and last that many battery cycles?
Anyone with an ipod - be this true?
Also, Ive heard rumours that to change batteries you have to send it in to maintenance along with $100 - you cant change it yourself without fear of fkin up the pod?

I have had no power problems with my iPod. I don't let it drain the entire way, except once accidently.

I have no problem with my 16 month old iPod.
and you can replace the battery yourself if you want.

I have a 40GB Ipod, currently have 8GB filled with music...

I use it everyday :)

There are a lot of tutorials online about how to change the ipod's battery...however, if you do so, you void the iPod's warrenty. It used to be that they wouldn't replace the battery at all, but changed it after media attention. They will do it for $100.

And they will do it if you have the applecare with it as well i believe. can't remember on that i never bought applecare with my iPod.