Well first off the name (real arguments come in the next paragraph). It seems like an obvious play on the Neo from the Matrix; and mStation M as is mobile, or M as in matrix? Hmmm, an amazingly imaginative group of people.....

I sent a question or 2 to the Neo people. Their response time was 24 hours. While that was nice, the answers I got back were not. They said you should ONLY use 5400 rpm drives and the only ones they reccommended were Maxtor units. If you know anything about Maxtor drives and the Win2k write cache issue this IMMEDIATLY creates a problem (for an unknown reason win2k on some systems never clears the write cache, thus causing many many (did I say a HUGE number?) files to become corrupted. The bug extends to not being able to disable the write cache in hardware manager(even though it looks like it has been). Maxtor drives ALWAYS boot with write cache enabled so those drives are out for me (I have one in my system and I've not written to it in 4 months!)

Since the Neo uses Desktop drives they are more suseptible to shock, damage, and the loss of your mp3 collection.

Cheap build quality all around.

The interface has that nice little grey wire snaking from the drive enclosure to it. That has to look VERY classy!

If your friends are looking for a good unit, the only thing on the market that really compares in terms of overall quality is the phatnoise. It's not the same philosophy, and in a few ways has advantages over the Rio Car. It's removable cartridges are easier to carry around, It's designed to fit in the trunk (a much more secure place if you own a BMW) so you don't have to drag a fragile (VFD) box around with you. It's admittedly more user friendly, (I know, that's not why we bought these things but I have to point it out), if you have only one DIN spot in your car you can put in a good head unit with CD player (DON'T SAY IT!!! It's a choice!! Like abortion!!). You may be wanting a head unit since the drive cartridges are only 20GB. Lastly, it's still made.

In summary

Empeg: high quality (sans a few cables and connectors ) head head unit with uber powers

Neo: Low quality desktop drive in a slide case, crappy interface, btw, what's up with the wire? They couldn't include something RF? not even a half din mountable unit? It's like a Tiburion!

PhatNoise:High quality unit without the cool 'I can mess with it' features of the empeg. More flexibility in head unit choice.