I have a ReplayTV 3030 (but now it is a 3160 after a drive upgrade...) and have had the 50xx model and I have to say I sold my 50xx because of the sluggish UI. Judging by friends who bought the 50xx's I had and who'd never been exposed to the earlier models you'll love it. But for me the performance of the UI in the newer models made them almost unusable. Changing channels took ~2-5sec and made channel flipping a tiresome chore.

I'm sure I could've enjoyed the commercial skip--even more so the Ethernet out on the newer models, but just not enough to part with my older unit.

Either way, you'll never watch TV the same way again--unless you're traveling, which really sucks cause you don' t have that 30-sec-skip-forward or 7-sec-skip-back button in the hotel. ;-)

Edit:Ooh, and I forgot to mention: the 20xx, 30xx models have no monthly fee for programming info!