I got lucky. I got a 10G in the last days of the greatest digital music device EVER. I waited for it to arrive. Patiently.

After much fretting (did I say "patiently"? Whatever), it finally arrived. But it wouldn't light up! What gives?

I installed disktest, then beta 7, and even downloaded a few songs, but still, the display was dark.

I even installed the new JEmplode (thank you, Mike!) with displayserver-like capabilities *just* so I could see and play the beloved thing. Oh well, I guess it's broke.

I called support and their pre-recorded msg says "no RMAs will be given unless you've talked to support" or something like that. Maybe I read it. Anyway, it was Friday night by the time I discovered this problem, so I emailed our good buddies in the UK.

I got a quick response from Mr. Moss verifying I probably had a broken display - send it over for repair. Only problem is it's um, in the UK! At least he offered to pay shipping.

The real woe here is that when I called support in the US to beg for a replacement, they gave me the cold shoulder. "Our systems don't allow a transfer because we're out of 10G. We could sell you a 60G, though." But they couldn't even promise me I would get it, and I would have to use... eeek... the eStore.

So, an empeg in hand is better than one in the eStore, I always say. Or at least I've taken to saying just this moment.

The moral? The folks in the UK rock, the boobs in the US do not. Sigh.

I guess I'll be back with more stupid, first time user questions when I get my Mk2a back in oh, say, TWO WEEKS! :-(

Oh, one other thing - the US guy insisted they have NEVER issued an RMA before for this product because they haven't ever been defective. I would believe it except for the eBay user comment about getting two.

I don't so much mind the problem, just the lying. H/W will always have problems, especially en masse. But honesty goes a long way.