[levinel]

I've been using an iMP-50 since April '04. Price was right, but initially I was disappointed to find that it didn't work well as an all-purpose CD player. Now I use it only with packet mp3, and I'm happy.

It took a while to realize that the long load time and short battery life were related to trying to use NiMH. The unit works much better with alkalines. Load time also improved when I discarded some discs and reburned. (Reformatting wasn't enough.) Seems like loading and seeking need a higher voltage than just spinning the disc. Mp3 time with alkalines is long enough that I've never measured it. But for CD-audio I could get only a couple hours, or less if I swapped discs or did much switching between tracks.

I wish I had a clue about why an iMP, capable of playing so many formats, can't read some CD-R discs that work fine in conventional players. (To get the iMP-50 to play them, I had to reburn all the CD-Rs I'd bought at concerts from musicians.) From user complaints elswhere, it sounds like this problem is not restricted to the low-end iMP-50.

So, for sure I'd like to upgrade - but first I'd like a better sense of which issues are common to some of the other models, which issues I can escape by upgrading, and how far up I need to go.
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11/21: I just received a used iMP-350. This unit has no problem reading the aforementioned CD-R originals.