These units look impressive: If it is possible to load directly mp3's into the unit, without using either sonic stage or simple burner, and the unit sees the mp3's like my DNE-300 mp3 cd player, I would be very happy. I use a macintosh, and I was able to make an MP3 CD using toast, and it worked on the DNE-300 CD walkman I use to replace my bookshelf stereo's built-in cd player that died on me. I prefer minidiscs for when I go outside, they are compact, and much less bulky than a cd player. If the new HI-MD players behave like an external drive, and you can copy MP3's directly from the finder, that would make the unit somewhat mac compatible. No ATRAC but having an mp3 compatible player would be great, especially if it beats the IPOD with its easy to change batteries. Have a nice day, Georges in Montreal