I have a Neo that I still use and it does the job it needs to. My biggest problem is that the firmware is rarely updated, not open-source, uncustomizable, and pretty stupid. I like to use Random mode a lot and it's randomizer is not random at all. Mostly it starts out by playing the same three or four songs to begin with, which you have to FF past, to get to anything remotely random. It hangs sometimes, overall build quality is poor, support is near horrendous, etc. If the Rios are unavailable, your friend should entertain some kind of a custom setup with a Nomad Jukebox (the new ones are nice), a Rio Riot, or the new Hungarian-produced product. I can't remember what it's called -- something like DMP3? There are postings in the forums about it somewhere.