Gadget-phillia!

Well, I had pretty much made up my mind that I [i]NEEDED[/i] a
PMP (Portable Media Player)

I had narrowed the field down to 3 candidates:

PSP
Gameboy Advance SP
Creative Zen Vision

Yep!  The first two items are handheld gaming consoles, but, did you know:

there is a ton of homebrew apps for older PSPs?
there is an addon for the Gameboy Advance that allows the unit to play movies?

The problems with the PSP is that you need to have an older unit (bios ver 1.5)
While it is certainly possible to find these, they are becoming scarcer and 
scarcer (and more expensive)  There HAVE been some recent advances in running
homebrew on the ver 2.0 bios, but Sony really frowns on these efforts and I
wouldn't put it past them to release a bios a month to correct things.
I can see their point.  The PSP is a loss-leader for them - they make all of
their money from UMDs and games.  If nobody buys any of the UMDs or games,
Sony goes out of business.  However, if I buy a device (be it computer, phone,
or whatever), I believe that I should do what I want with it!  Granted, pirating
games/movies/whatever is wrong, but that wasn't what I wanted to use the thing for!
So with Sony's aggressive anti-homebrew efforts and the rarity of 1.5 PSPs, (not 
to mention the fact that I would have to use expensive Memory Sticks to store all 
of the movies on), I ruled them out.

Looked at the GBA SP next and was amazed to find that a simple, little $25 addon
allows the unit to play movies, MP3s and eBooks!  Granted, watching a movie on a 
2.9" diagonal screen would be a trifle onerous, but the price was hard to beat!
Then I read that the conversion process was iffy with Divx4.  And you couldn't
have external subtitle files.  And, again, you needed memory cards to store the
movies (Compact Flash, this time).  Granted, the game library for the GBA is 
outstanding, but I really didn't want it to play games with.

Dug up what info was available on the Creative Zen Vision.  There wasn't much.
Creative had announced the product in June, then pulled the specs and the announcement
from their website.  Bits and pieces trickled in for the next couple of months
and now several stores are listing it for October delivery (and eBay has several
Singapore distributors who say that they have it NOW!)
It seems like the perfect unit - 30gig HD for storing movies, 640x480 3.7" screen,
Compact Flash capable (with other cards usable via an adaptor), FM radio,
DivX, Xvid, MPG1/2/4 video and USB to connect to a computer for copying video
files over.  Seems pretty good, huh?  I just needed to wait until sometime next
month when they, hopefully, become available!

Well, not being content to sit around and wait, I started expanding my search.
Maybe a PMP really wasn't what I [i]NEEDED[/i] after all.

Came across the Shinco SDP-6820.  Now this was a revelation!  Portable DVD
player that could play DivX, Xvid, etc off of DVD-Rs!  OK, DVD-Rs run about $.25
each.  I have over 100 with an average of 5 movies on each.  Hmmmmmm.  Wait a 
minute!  You can attach a USB HD and use it for file storage??!  Wait a minute, 
again!  8.5" WIDESCREEN HD swivel screen??!  That you can lay flat like a tablet??!  
For $50 LESS than the Zen Vision??!  And on top of it all, its Region Free??!
Looks like a winner!
Now, I just have to see about getting one exported from England! (which may 
actually reduce the price since I don't need to pay VAT!)

Further Bulletins as events warrant!