I've posted before that I had a NEO35 Car Mp3 player for 2 years and I was fairly happy with it. After I transferred my whole collection to the empeg rio car using the factory installed v1.2 software and started using it. I really WAS NOT impressed. I had most of the same functions except for a few things like visuals and a better display. I was a tiny skeptic to download V2.07 because it was still considered "BETA" but I did, along with the Logo Editor, and the newest HiJack dated Jan 16 2001, then BAM! It's a whole new player. The feature differences from 1.02 to 2.07b is INCREDIBLE! More menu options, better interface, use of buttons, GAMES! and a Visual that has BREAKDANCERS! I'm glad to see that their are developers out there working on this everyday to make this a better "computer", something the NEO35 had very little of.

To anybody out there who is still on factory install 1.2 or 1.3, upgrade your player and you will have a whole new player. You won't regret it, and IF you have problems, you can always downgrade it to what you had.

little note: I notice that the boot up process and playlist generation is a few seconds slowers than the earlier versions, but it's still worth the wait.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that 2.0beta7 is still a beta, and it has bugs. The biggest known show-stoppers at this time are:

- It has some memory problems which cause it to sometimes lock up after a synch. This can be temporarily worked-around with an edit to config.ini:
[Startup]
reservecache=8

- It has some lockup problems where the IR and front-panel inputs will stop responding occasionally, requiring a reboot.

- The Info:Seek Tool sometimes reboots the player.

- Emplode will sometimes erase songs when you move or cut/paste them between playlists. So use extreme caution when editing playlists in emplode-- only do copies, not moves, until the next beta is out.

However, if you're willing to live with those (and many more minor bugs), I will agree that 2.0beta7 is a great piece of software and does expand the capabilities of the unit significantly.