I finally got my "invitation to order", a year after I registered. I think Empeg guys have a great product, but it's too expensive and too late to the market. There's a number of alternatives on the market today that looks much more attractive. For example, Aiwa CDC-MP3 in-dash player that plays CD-R disks with MP3s (in addtion to regular CDs and AM/FM) for less than $300 bucks!!! Spending $1200+ on an MP3 player seems a bit ridiculous at this stage. I can put 10 MP3 CDs in my changer and have the same amount of music (6GB) as the base Empeg, but for 25% of the cost.

Sure, it's neat to have a "Linux" in your dashboard for all you geeks out there, but I just want to play MP3 music in my car and not mortgage my house to be able to do so :)