Is this a nano ripoff?

#1, this series MP3 player actually came out before the Nano.

tempted to take back my sansa 8 gig to costco at this price

Nano is flash-based and this is hard-drive based. Its a lot shorter, but also a lot thicker than a nano. Good mp3 player overall- great sound and it has a cool blue light border.

"The bottom line: The Creative Zen Micro Photo is an excellent full-featured MP3 player and, for its size, a decent photo viewer; it just doesn't combine the two effectively."
Otherwise a good CNET review with Editors Choice Award way back in November 2005.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_Zen_Micro_Photo_8GB_black/4505-6490_7-31570239.html

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14107

99.99 + Shipping = NO REBATES TO WORRY ABOUT

I have one of these and bought one for my girlfriend. I love it but there are a few things I'd like to point out:

• Battery life is more like ~10 hours, not 15. That's just letting it sit there playing music with the screen off.

• Sound quality is better than that of an ipod (big surprise)

• FM tuner works great, if you're not in an office building...

• The picture feature is pretty worthless, but it's got a nice bright color screen (its predecessor didn't have a color screen)

• The battery is removable and replaceable

• You can charge this via the USB cable (good luck finding a wall plug charger NOT directly through Creative), *BUT* it won't charge unless the computer actually 'recognizes' the device. Why is this a problem? The computers at my work are locked down so you can't install things like flash drives. I plug in the MP3 player and it asks for admin rights to install it. No admin rights, no install, no charge... even though the current is there...