I have an old Rio that can take SD cards up to 1GB (I tried a 2GB card, but can't trick it to work beyond 1 GB.) I like it because it's small, lightweight, has a great black rubber encasement, and is easy to read. I've only recently started using it (my wife got it as a birthday present several years ago.) I also like it because the storage medium is solid state. I don't want a spinning hard drive in my MP3 player.

Anyways, the reason I started using it is because when I got a new stereo for my motorhome, I wanted to make sure it had two things: a way to connect an XM receiver, and a line-in for the MP3 player. As things went, the XM radio had more than enough music choices to listen to, so I've not used the MP3 player a whole lot. It also plays MP3/WMA CDs, so I have a lot of choices of what kind of music I can play, and how I play it. It sure made my drive to Kentucky a whole helluva lot easier than it was 5 years ago (the old stereo only played tapes, and the brand-new 6-CD changer I had installed for that trip had the shock-reduction springs set for a horizontal installation, and the changer was mounted vertically, making it unplayable on most highways. I didn't figure this out until a few years later.

)

Anyways, enough about me.

I do have a slightly tangental question though:

Creative Zen Nano-Plus 1GB -- Black : "The 1 GB model's flash memory can store up to 500 songs (WMA-encoding, 64 kbps)."

Which format/kbps rate do the folks in this thread prefer, and why?