Just a quick note, you can use Best Buy’s in-store pickup option to check the stock at your local stores. Go to the website (direct link: http://www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat102000050013&type=category) and click “Check preferred store availability” to see if they’re available in your area. If they are, you can buy one through the site and they’ll set it aside for you to go pick up at the customer service counter in the store.

I’m hedging my bets that Apple will someday release a media server add-on for iTunes that’ll allow you to grab the songs and videos in your iTunes library from halfway around the world. That, for me, would be the ultimate feature and it’d make the limited storage less of an issue.

That being said, the UI is pretty different from a normal iPod because there’s no scroll wheel. The finger flicking thing is cool but I don’t think it’s as easy to use as scrolling. I’ve overshot things plenty of times already just by flicking my finger too fast.

So I’d say that if you want a device for the sole purpose of listening to music and you want to be able to load tons and tons of files onto it, the Classic might be a better bet. But for someone like me who will use the extra features as much or more as the actual music playing part, the touch is pretty solid. I don’t carry my MP3 players with me wherever I go, though. I bought this to use in the car occasionally and to take on airplanes. I think it’ll serve my purposes pretty well.