Pearl is indeed thicker than the iPod, albeit it substantially shorter. We have an entirely different design philosophy (with little details such as a useful battery life) which some people will prefer, while others will go for iPod. I won't even try to convince a Mac fan - I know you guys catch anything Apple deign to throw at you

No plans for recording in version 1.0. There's plenty of headroom, though, as we use the next generation of the chip used in the iPod. Even so I'm not convinced that single speed capture is going to be the killer feature - quality playback features such as the cross fader and fully parametric EQ are more important.

Rob