Pros: the case handles. i know it sounds trivial, but they do make an enormous difference, especially with a case of this size and heft. they're well constructed, strong, and it feels natural to grab these at the head and foot of the case to move it, instead of using your palms on the sides and fingers under the edges near the floor to pick it up. nice quick release side panels, e-sata port on top novelty, 3.5 x 6 bay/tray arrangement.

Cons: runs hot when you put a furnace in it. *heh heh*

Overall Review: i always get a chuckle when i read these thermal ragefest reviews, complete with sense of being cheated, robbed, etc. we all know cooling is an art form, don't we? for this case, mount a fan in the bottom 5.25 bay to draw air across the 6 3.5 drives below. also suggest the manufacturer make the drive trays out of a grill like material with holes instead of solid aluminum sheeting for better air circulation. my rig: this case + thermaltake toughpower 1200w modular ps, asus l1n64-sli mb, fx-74 x 2, 2GB x 4 geil mem, evga 8800 gtx x 2, 500 GB samsung spinpoint-t x 6, fedora 8 linux w/sw raid. runs perfectly. :-)

Pros: small, lightweight yet solid, understated, and elegantly crafted. works right out of the box, no software required, although included. connecting via usb mounts an IAUDIO drive; simply copy your music over and enjoy. :-) sound quality nonpareil. <uttered with tearful emotion during glen gould's "goldberg variations"> methuselah battery life. unfettered by digital rights management or other "captive customer" nonsense. built-in fm radio with record capability supports mp3, wma(wsf), ogg, flac, and wav encoding formats. charges via usb or from power adapter. excellent multi(lingual|national) support.

Cons: the tiny metal joystick presents an unpleasant tactile sensation after extended use. a replaceable rounded rubber pip would answer nicely.

Overall Review: i purchased this as a christmas gift for my girlfriend after convincing her to forego a "lavender mp3 player" for something more technically suitable. she has an enormous amount of digital music (~22 GB) on her computer, and its migration to the x5l was quick and easy with one small snag: the x5l file system is vfat and is sensitive to filenames containing characters like '?','"',':' and '$'. fortunately, we're a "linux" household. :-) to fix it, i wrote a quick perl script to localize, rename, and copy the offending files over. it exudes nothing but quality, excellence, and joy. you'll suffer no buyer's remorse after purchasing one, i guarantee it. :-)