It is a cute little unit. The only reason to get one of these over a 500 is because you want voice recording. (OK, the sound is better too, but they're both nice on a trip...)

Personally, I prefer the 500 because of it's ideal form factor(not too big, not too small.) Also, the 500 will use standard SmartMedia memory cards for expansion as opposed to a custom memory back pack.

My opinions, of course, YMMV.