After using the Genica Tavarua for the past month or so and even taking it along with me during my 3-week vacation during the Christmas break, I can safely tell you that I absolutely love this player! Sure, the device does have some downsides such as its incredibly large size, but in the end, there's nothing like being able to take about 150 of my favourite songs with me on the road. The short battery life has gotten on my nerves quite a bit, but a quick solution to this problem is to always carry an extra pair of AA batteries with me. At home, I even find that I've been using my computer less and less to play MP3's and that I've been using the Tavarua more and more instead. I just plug it into one of my spare speaker systems (using the handy Line-Out jack of the Tavarua) and voila! For a mere $90 USD, which is about the same as a good CD discman, the Tavarua is now part of my "essential devices" listing.

Bonus! Genica Accessory Kit
On top of the base Tavarua model, Genica has also created an accessory kit that you can purchase for a suggested retail price of $29.95. I received one of these kits and was very impressed with it. Included is another set of headphones (not ear buds, but headphones this time), a car kit and a neat little booklet entitled "The MP3 Manifesto." The book is very neat as it explains virtually everything you would ever want to know about MP3, including the technology itself, how to obtain MP3's, how to play MP3's both on and away from your computer and much, much more; perfect for anyone interested in listening to digital music. The car kit is also a very nice addition to your Tavarua as it allows you to play your MP3 files on your car cassette deck. The headphones, on the other hand and much like the ear buds included with the base Tavarua unit, were absolutely terrible: not only was the sound quality terrible this time, they were even very uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the accessory kit is a nice addition to your Tavarua player for a mere suggested retail price of $29.95 (although Genica has informed me that you can obtain it for only about $19 at some online retailers).

Pros Carry 150 songs with you! Plays Audio CD's, CD-R's and even CD-RW's Rapid skip and directory browsing Able to use/recharge rechargeable batteries Record function Acceptable price Cons Terrible battery life Large size Audio equalizer settings for MP3 playing are nasty Included earbuds are terrible

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