I found the Sonic Blue Rio CE2100(black)/CE2110(green) for $129.99 with a $40 Rebate at FYE this weekend. So that gives it a grand total of $89.99. And for a 2.5 GB Microdrive based mp3 player That is a great deal.

The CE2100 is basically the Rio Carbon with a smaller 2.5 GB Microdrive instead of the 5GB of the Carbon. The drive can theoretically be upgraded although I haven't attempted that. The one other thing it doesn't have is voice record capability. Again, i believe the microphone is there but it is disabled in the firmware, which begs the question, can we download the real Rio Carbon firmware to it to enable it?

The interface is great it is confirmed that the menus do not wrap as eluded to in this comment by Jason. The screen is big enough and has good enough contrast  for my wife to read the text while holding it about an inch away from her eye.

It seems to be good sturdy and has a great battery life, 20 hours with 128 bps mp3 and a moderate volume level around 15 or so( I so wish it were 11 though).

New deals: Overstock.com, has the 5 gb version for $129.99 no rebate though sorry

Dimensions: 2.5”W x 3.3”H x 0.6” D
Weight: 3.2 oz.

System Requirements:
Windows® 98SE, 2000, ME, XP and MAC® OS X v10.2 or later. Intel Pentium II 233 mhz or higher. 64MB RAM. 35MB available hard drive space. USB Port. CD-ROM drive

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