Creative External Sound Blaster Live! SB0490 5.1 Channels 24-bit 48kHz in 5.1 mode and up to 96kHz in stereo mode USB Interface Sound Card

Pros: The sound quality is infinitely better than my laptop's built-in sound, using either digital or analog outputs. It's also nice how portable it is, and that it has BOTH optical and coaxial digital outputs.

Cons: If you want to take advantage of the full range of advertised features, you must install Creative's software. The basic drivers seem to be fine, but whatever you do DON'T INSTALL THE REST OF THE SOFTWARE. It is extremely bloated and takes the most time to install I've EVER seen. (Longer even than XP, I think...) Also, it just didn't seem to be very good so I removed it after less than an hour.

Overall Review: Occasional popping sounds can be heard (mostly from the left channel?), but it may be issues with the USB2.0 PCMCIA card I'm using...

Pros: Plugs right in, has 5.1 support.

Cons: All of the external tools: Graphic Equalizer, Speaker Settings, etc. provided by Creative do not recognize the device on Vista. The workaround is just to use Vista built-in features (described on Creative's site).

Overall Review: Occasionally when plugged into USB the device does not turn on. Replugging it in a couple times generaly fixes it.
This will be a great product when the issues with Vista are corrected.