On the iPod, perhaps if you are not into music or require no-holds barred hi-fi, I can understand not having one. Interestingly, as a hi-fi user, I had avoided them thinking they must be cheap plastic junk.

Then a funny thing happened. My factory amp went belly up halfway through a 1400-mile road trip. It was too quiet in the car. I needed music.

Feeling my pain, and having asked me what my requirements might be if I ever changed my mind and got an iPod, my wife bought for an anniversary gift an 80Gb unit for me. Soon I had fixed the factory amp but I was hooked.

Up until this time, I carried a large collection of CD's in the car. It was a pain to shuffle them in and out. Too many CD's to find what I wanted quickly, a space hog, etc.

In my quest to connect the iPod to the factory stereo, I ended up getting an aftermarket head unit and a few other things. The iPod integration took me way beyond what a CD-changer would have done for me in terms of music capacity and options.

I have been slowly burning my LP collection onto CD and dumping it into iTunes. Long ago I eclipsed what I used to carry in the CD case, and still have a huge reserve left in the 80GB. I'm pretty close to having every last bit (pun intended) of music I own, which is no small thing.

Clearly the iPod sound quality has some shortcomings when you sit it side-by-side with a CD (or high-end LP) sound-source. Notwithstanding, the differences are hard for me to detect in a moving car, with 50-something year old ears, and my mind on my driving.

I abhor the way they've locked up the music sold on iTunes (they could do a lot better job of making it easy for me to manage and use my music and still prevent piracy) but that's in the noise for me - I buy my music on CD or LP and don't have to deal with that nonsense.

In the end, having all my music in a package the size of a cigarette pack and the playback options, text and album art display, I can't imagine not having an iPod...

YMMV